Email to Demarcus Marshall, Lowndes County Commissioner, District 4

Dear Commissioner Marshall,

Thank you for your service to Lowndes County as my county commissioner these last years.

Commissioner Marshall, I ask that you would attempt to get a majority of the commissioners to pass an ordinance, with teeth, that would effectively prevent Sabal Trail from running the pipeline through our county. You could even start with outright prohibition of any pipeline company surveying for, or contructing a pipeline through Lowndes County without the expressed written consent of the Lowndes County Commission.  I intend to write other commissioners to ask them to join with you, and to get it on the chairman's agenda for a vote. You could do this if you so chose. 

Know that if you would do this, you would have my sincere gratitude from the bottom of my heart. I think doing this would be for the benefit of the citizens of Lowndes County, and it would be you to whom history would point to as the one who supported the effort. 

Thank you,

Email to Crawford Powell, Lowndes County Commissioner, District 3 Re: Sabal Trail pipeline

Dear Commissioner Powell,

Thank you for your service to Lowndes County as my county commissioner these last years.

Commissioner Powell, you will leave the commission at the end of the year. I ask as this one parting gift to the citizens of Lowndes County, that you would attempt to get a majority of the commissioners to pass an ordinance, with teeth, that would effectively prevent Sabal Trail from running the pipeline through our county. You could even start with outright prohibition of any pipeline company surveying for, or contructing a pipeline through Lowndes County without the expressed written consent of the Lowndes County Commission.  I intend to write other commissioners to ask them to join with you, and to get it on the chairman's agenda for a vote. You could do this if you so chose. 

Know that if you would do this, you would have my sincere gratitude from the bottom of my heart. I think doing this would be for the benefit of the citizens of Lowndes County, and it would be you to whom history would point to as the one who supported the effort. 

Thank you,

Email to Richard Raines, County Commissioner of Lowndes County, GA Re: Sabal Trail pipeline

Dear Commissioner Raines,

Thank you for your service to Lowndes County as commissioner, and thank you for your words of support for the Sabal Trail pipeline opposition after the last commission meeting. I especially took note of your statement that, "none of the commissioners think this pipeline is a good idea." You particularly said you wanted to do something substantial. 

May I ask that you do just that, something substantial? You could write an ordinance that would ban any pipelineline company from surveying property, and any construction whatsoever without the express written consent of the commission. Then you could also write an ordinance with a list of requirements that a pipeline would have to follow that would pretty much make it impossible to run through Lowndes County. One requirement could be they could not cross or tunnel under rivers, or through karst geology. 

Commissioner Raines, you will leave the commission at the end of the year. I ask as this one parting gift to the citizens of Lowndes County, that you would attempt to get a majority of the commissioners to pass an ordinance, with teeth, that would effectively prevent Sabal Trail from running the pipeline through our county. I intend to write other commissioners to ask them to join with you, and to get it on the chairman's agenda for a vote. You could do this if you so chose. 

Know that if you would do this, you would have my sincere gratitude from the bottom of my heart. I think doing this would be for the benefit of the citizens of Lowndes County, and it would be you whom history would point to as the one who spearheaded the effort. 

Thank you,

Wisenbaker Shares His Plans As Commissioner

So read the title of the ValdostaToday article. (BTW, in case you don't know, commissioner-elect Tally Mark Wisenbaker is brother of Gary Wisenbaker, editorial page director of ValdostaToday.com, and director of parent company, Black Crow Media. Needless to say, Mark will probably get some good press and influence during his tenure as a county commissioner.)

I got to briefly meet commissioner-elect Wisebaker at the county commission meeting of November 11, during which I gave an "emphatic speech" (according to the Valdosta Daily Times) in opposition to the proposed Sabal Trail pipeline, asking the commissioners for some kind of resolution against this thing. After the meeting, I was trying to find my way to the front to talk with the commissioners more informally, when Mr. Wisenbaker and I came face-to-face and he introduced himself to me, which I appreciated since he will be my district representative. I understand he is against the pipeline also, which I greatly appreciate, and hope he can help us turn this thing back.

We will have paying jobs, our college graduates, our children, and grand children, when they finish their education they can stay here instead of moving to Atlanta,” Wisenbaker said. “We will have other jobs that will be attractive to them and I think that’s very important.” - 

I truly, truly hope so. He goes on to say,

 “We have 500 acres of industrial park vacant with infrastructure ready to go,” Wisenbaker said.

“We have a technical school that can train you, we have the military college, VSU, the medical center, PCA paper mill in Clyatville. Moody Air Force base is the key to our security economically here because they bring so many people here.”

I once heard Dandy Don Meredith say to Howard Cosell on Monday Night Football, "Howard, you have a firm grasp of the obvious." I mean no offense to Mr. Wisenbaker, but all he has said is very general. What does he think a number of people in the various responsible positions in Lowndes County have been trying to do for the last, I don't know, forever? If he has some special insight or plan, that's great, and I'd like to hear it.

Here's what he says his plan is:

I intentionally didn’t pry or look into anything. I wanted to be fresh and new and get it straight from the horses mouth instead of from hear say, from other people saying, ‘ here is how the county does this or that,’  Wisenbaker said. “I feel like I’ll be better off by getting it straight instead of different sources that are just speculating. 

It seems to me, he could have started looking at how the county is doing things a long time ago, and gone through the learning curve he's on now.  There are no people he can talk to now, that he couldn't have talked to a year ago.

I'm looking forward to what he is going to do, and really hope he can produce more and better jobs in Lowndes County, that can keep our children and grandchildren here, just as his family has had the pleasure.

The Mystery

The Mystery. that's how I like to put it. It's my guess there is something more to life than we normally perceive. I think that because of what I have experienced, and experience today. There is another dimension from our usual, mundane perception that we take for reality. It's a Mystery, in that, it's generally obscured. We have to exercise some effort in order to ferret out the truth.

You can experience it the same as me. Meditation is a good beginning. Do a little reading of the mystics. Meister Eckhardt, Rumi, Hildegard of Bingham and Theresa of Avila, Krishnamurti,  and even Eckhart Tolle. Most importantly, get in touch with what is inside of you. We all have it in common, yet few are aware of this part of ourselves, a part that makes us truly human, and a spiritual being.

From Mystery, comes the word mystic. It is the mystics that are aware of the spiritual realm, the spirituality of every religion. It has never ceased to be an important revelation to me, that the mystics of their respective religions had more in common with each other, than the mystics of the various religions had with the fundamentalists of their respective religions. It has always been the fundamentalists of all religions that sanctioned and sanctified the most atrocious acts, like war and oppression, in all of history. I encourage all, individually, to pursue the spiritual, to seek to become aware of the Spirit in every moment, and the Truth, the Reality, inherent in every moment.

My eComment to FERC in opposition to Sabal Trail

As a citizen of Lowndes County, Georgia, I am opposed to the Sabal Trail Transmission, LLC’s plan to run a thirty six inch gas pipeline, with a billion cubic feet per day capacity, through my county.

I am opposed to the construction of the pipeline for a number of reasons. The two main ones are:

1.      Over the last year, I have been to numerous meetings and have spoken to scores of people in several counties and two states. All of the people that I have seen and heard are unanimous in their opposition to the pipeline. Never once have I met a local citizen who spoke in favor of having the pipeline. Now these citizen’s governments are hearing their constituents and are passing resolutions and ordinances in opposition to the pipeline, including the Dougherty County (GA) County Commission, the Albany, GA, city council, and the Hamilton County (FL) County Commission. There may be others, and there appear to be others that will follow suit.

In other words, the apparent unanimous desire of the public is to say No to this pipeline. The people’s voice should be heard loudly and clearly.

2.      This whole thing started with Florida Power & Light (FPL) saying it needs the gas to produce electricity in Florida. The data I have seen calls this need into question. Even if Floridians have a need for this electricity, FPL could easily produce that amount via solar on a fraction of the acreage Sabal Trail is wanting to take from the landowners.

In other words, the gas is not needed. There is no need for this pipeline.

Given these, and scores of other reasons written by hundreds of others to FERC, I ask you deny Sabal Trail the permit for this pipeline.

Thank you,

James Parker

The 1% vs. the 90%

Let's face it, when we talk about the 1%, we're talking about top management of corporations, people like CEOs. COOs, CFOs, CTOs, VPs, company owners, and board members, as that is who, by far, dominates the population of the top 1%. The bottom 90% are comprised of working people, those that earn their living by their smarts and the sweat of their brow. Those in the financial industry are almost in a class unto themselves. We'll get to them soon and/or in another post.

When I observe this corporate structure, I find that it is I, the worker, that actually performs the function, the work, of the corporation, and brings into reality what is only conceptual to the high level execs. However, corporate structure and culture puts me, the worker, in a subservient position in a hierarchy. They consider themselves above me in this hierarchy. I become something less than them. That's what it seems to me, given how I've observed how they act toward working people, the 90%. It's weird that so often they talk about "team spirit," and "there's no I in TEAM." Do you really think they think they're on the team with us? I don't get that at all. They're more like the owner of the team that equates himself with the team, or even the creator (god) of the team. Think Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys (among a number of others). 

From my point of view, they use the facade of the corporation as an intermediary in a relationship that is a very small step from slavery. All these corporate execs and owners make their fortunes by skimming off the labor of the people that are doing the production of the corporation. There is a totally unfair distribution of revenue within the corporate structure, in regards to the relative contributions of individuals that actually bring the revenue into a company. This is because a certain system has been set up. The CEO gets to call the shots, like some sort of little Napolean, a dictator in his own little realm, the corporation. I have to admit, that's some pretty heady stuff. They are required to be this way by the board of directors and the shareholders (who are the shareholders? that would be the 1%). 

Here's the thing, a corporation is just a system. It does have a number of subsystems that can comprise it, but even those are limited in number. These systems are what are taught in business schools. If you want to get down with it. that's a subsystem,  the education of future execs. There is even a hierarchy in that subsystem, with Harvard Business School as the primary source of future execs for the 1% worldwide.

This is merely a brief description of the economic/financial/corporate system we find ourselves in. For most of us, that's a very real present concern. We are working very hard to to swim our way through these financial waters. Meanwhile those that are calling the shots are sucking up more and more of the fruits of our labor. 

Not content with economic domination, they now move to political domination in controlling our government, by merely buying up candidates and the resultant politicians. We, 90%, need to come together and do what we want. Why should we 90 be dominated by 1?

Appeal to the Lowndes County Commission 11/11/14

Tonight, on a rare Tuesday night off, I made a point of attending our County Commission meeting, and getting up at the "Citizens to be Heard" portion to make a plea for the Commission to pass a resolution against the Sabal Trail gas pipeline (check out spectrabusters.org, if you don't know what I'm talking about). I was thankful that it appeared the commissioners tuned into what I was saying, and it got a rousing response in applause from the gallery. Thank you to all who expressed your support.

At the end, Commissioner Raines told us that the no one on the Commission thinks this is a good thing for Lowndes County, but wants to do something "substantial" to prevent the pipeline from coming through. Other commissioners told us that they have been told, by what I assumed were Sabal Trail representatives, that this will be decided at a higher level than they, implying it is inevitable, why fight it?

They did bring up the need to take it to the next level and our state and national representatives. I specifically asked that the Commission to lobby our state and national representatives on our behalf, and feel I was assured this would be the case, to which I say, thank you.

Just remember, they told us the biomass plant was a done deal, yet we turned that back. I sympathize with the commissioners sense of powerlessness, and expressed my thoughts about that this evening. However, this pipeline is not yet a done deal. Now is the time for all the state representatives, especially the ones whose districts are affected, to bring this up in the next session of the Georgia Legislature. I'm looking at you, Dexter Sharper, Amy Carter, and Ellis Black. Also, get in touch with Austin Scott, Johnny Isakson, and the newly elected David Perdue, and tell them we don't need no stinking pipeline coming through Georgia and Lowndes County that has no benefit to the citizens of Georgia, and especially, Lowndes County.

Here is what I said to the commission tonight:

Chairman Slaughter, fellow commissioners,

My name is James Parker, I live at ___ in the city of Valdosta. 

I come before you today to humbly request that you follow in the footsteps of the Dougherty County Commission, and pass a resolution in opposition to the Sabal Trail pipeline passing through Lowndes County. 

This proposed pipeline provides absolutely no benefit to any citizen living in Lowndes County, nor, in fact, to any citizen living in the State of Georgia. Yet Sabal Trail wants, no, demands, that they be allowed to run this 36-inch pipeline through hundreds of private properties, taking a hundred foot wide path that the property owners can no longer have full use of, thus negatively affecting the value of their property. 

Over the last year, I have seen hundreds of property owners and their supporters speak at numerous meetings against this pipeline. Never once have I heard a local citizen speak in support of this pipeline. The only people I have ever heard speak in the pipeline's favor have been paid representatives of the corporation.

In my opinion, Sabal Trail has been less than straight up in its dealings with Lowndes County citizens. For example, Sabal Trail has fallaciously, and I would say deceptively, asserted eminent domain in its letters to landowners, in order to give Sabal Trail access to their properties to survey them. Lacking such consent, Sabal Trail has been known to trespass on the properties in order to survey them anyway. 

Why should the residents of Lowndes County, citizens like you and me, have to let this foreign corporation, Sabal Trail, run roughshod over us? Why do we have to kneel before their wishes? How is it that a single foreign corporation can have greater power and say than the hundreds of property owners and their supporters? Why should we living, breathing, human citizens have to yield and step aside and give up our property to this corporation and its pecuniary interests? Are we human beings now second class citizens in our own county and country? It looks to me, right now, that what a multi-billion company, that isn't even from here, wants to do trumps all the local citizenry, their wishes, and property rights. 

This august Commission are the elected representatives of the citizens of Lowndes County. I ask that you protect and defend the property owners and other citizens of Lowndes County against the onslaughts of this foreign entity.

Please, I ask, and even beg you, to pass a resolution forbidding this corporation, Sabal Trail, from ramming this pipeline through our county. It has absolutely no benefit to us in any way, shape, or form, yet it takes property away from our citizens, and is a threat to the people of Lowndes County and their property.

Thank you for your time

People Are Now Second Class Citizens of Our Great Country

It's stuff like this that just makes me want to say, &%^&*^#%^^$!!!!!

Again, a single corporation is able to pump as much water it wants out of the areas aquifer, affecting more than a hundred thousand people for the next few years, for the grand sum of $230?!! Why didn't they meter it? It'd been a sweet source of revenue for the county. All this is happening in the midst of drought conditions. Quite a privileged deal for the corporation, far greater than I think any citizen could expect.

So the company basically gets all the water it wants for free, while the actual living breathing human beings are charged? Are there water restrictions in effect for the citizens? Are we are so programmed so as to complacently step back and don't even bother our minds about this outrageous injustice? Why does this corporation have such a privileged status compared to the citizens of the area? Do you know Nestle is not an American company? It's Swiss. So a foreign corporation is given privileged status over American citizens.

Nestle makes millions a year selling Madison's water. Madison should at least get a cut of that. Else Nestle is totally disrespecting the citizens of Madison. No doubt Nestle thinks you're just a bunch of stupid hicks and rubes.

We need a complete overhaul of taxation.

It seems those that benefit the most from our country and economy, should have the greatest responsibility to support the system.

1) A Security Transaction Excise Tax:

We pay sales taxes on everything else from food to cars to property, why not on securities purchases? It can be a little as a quarter to a half cent on the dollar.

2) Capital Gains Tax:

At present the capital gains tax is something like five to fifteen percent, which is far less than someone pays on income derived from their labor, which can be thirty nine percent.

There seems to be two different kinds of capital gains. One is dividends, i.e., the profits of a corporation are dispensed to the shareholders. Thus we have individuals that make their money sitting by the pool drinking their martinis waiting for their checks to arrive. These people expect to make money on that which they bestow no labor. Talk about lazy!  

The other type of capital gain is the buying and selling of securities, and the profit made on the transactions. Now I understand the meaning of "investment," that is floating capital to a corporation in return for a cut of the profits. Consider this:

At the end of World War II, the average holding period for a stock was four years. By 2000, it was eight months. By 2008, it was two months. And by 2011, it was 22 seconds, at least according to one professor’s estimate. Scott Patterson, Dark Pools

You can't say you're investing in a company when you hold the stock for a mere twenty two seconds! You're just gaming the system. This is where High Frequency Trading comes in. It's entirely parasitical in nature, and distorts the market.

I'm thinking a fifty to ninety nine percent tax dependent on how long you hold the security, with a decent deduction for retirement accounts.

3) Income Tax, or Tax on Labor:

This still needs to be progressive in nature, but I think we could bring it down to a top rate of twenty five to thirty percent.

4) Tariffs:

I know these are anathema to the globalists out there, but I'm not one of them. The outsourcing of manufacturing to places like China for the last thirty years have decimated the great middle class of our country. Just look at my hometown, Detroit, to see what this has done to America. Detroit was the greatest industrial city in the world when I was growing up there in the fifties and sixties. It's now a picture of what the one percent have wrought with their class warfare of the past thirty or forty years.

5) Corporate Income Tax:

I confess I'm a little ambivalent because these are passed on to consumers. However, as late as the sixties, the corporate income tax accounted for thirty percent of receipts. I see no reason why profitable corporations should get a free pass, or even additional funds from the Treasury. They are wanting something for nothing. They don't give that to their workers, so why should we give it to them?

I think one percent off the top is a good place to start.

Corporate Power Comes Home - LTE to VDT 3.10.11

How is it that one foreign corporation, that has just come into existence to do this project, can have greater power than all of the thousands of citizens affected, and their elected governments?

No, I'm not talking about the Keystone XL pipeline, but the issues are the same. This one wants to run a thirty six inch gas pipeline through a number of states and counties, including Lowndes, affecting thousands of landowners. It's known as Sabal Trail Transmission, LLC, and is the unholy offspring of Spectra Corp. and NextEra Energy. 

How can one foreign corporation (they're from out of state), have so much power vis-a-vis the thousands of landowners and citizens of Lowndes County, that the citizens must give up a hundred foot wide swath of their land, along with the depreciation of their property values, not to mention their personal safety, and allow this pipeline to come through? The gas is not even for use in Lowndes County, or even the state of Georgia. However, the general feeling is we have to give in to the corporation's demands. County Commission Chairman Slaughter, is quoted as saying, "There's nothing we can do."

Does anyone else see the problem here? Why must we, the citizens and landowners of Lowndes County, Georgia, have to give up our land and security to a foreign corporation of absolutely no benefit to the citizens and landowners of Lowndes County, Georgia? How is this corporation given a privileged status greater than the thousands of people who live here?

They edited out my last paragraph.

Chairman Slaughter, you were elected to represent the citizens of Lowndes County, not roll over and play dead in the face of some out of state corporation. If you don't think you can represent your constituents, if you're not up to the task, then perhaps you should resign your position and let us elect someone who can. 

Rand Paul: Shilling for the Frackers

"I would immediately get every obstacle out of the way for our export on oil and gas. And I would begin drilling in every possible conceivable place within our territories in order to have production that we can supply Europe with if it's interrupted from Ukraine," he said on "Fox News Sunday" when asked how he would approach the crisis in Ukraine.

Since Rand Paul doesn't seem to be some Vice President of Marketing for the American Petroleum Institute, or the NGSA, I must assume he's been hired on in some fashion, considering the way he's shilling for the gas industry.

Natural gas has become the next hot commodity. The fossil fuel industry and their groupies, are touting it as America's "energy independence," and more especially, look to export said natural gas. Europe is in a precarious position with it's dependence on Russian gas, with numerous pipelines running across the Ukraine. The glut of natural gas in the US is due to the glut of fracking going on everywhere they can. If fracking was a clean industry, I wouldn't care, but it's extremely poisonous, and a fossil fuel industry that contributes substantially to greenhouse gasses leading to climate change and global warming that will have severe consequences on my children and grandchildren.

The US has the capacity to get all its energy needs through renewable sources. We no longer need fossil fuels and could systematically phase them out. Thus, I do not trust anyone who would tout such a throwback and poisonous source of energy.

Pipeline Corporate Power Comes Home in Georgia

How is it that one foreign corporation, that has just come into existence to do this project, can have greater power than all of the thousands of citizens affected, and their elected governments?

No, I'm not talking about the Keystone XL pipeline, but the issues are the same. This one wants to run a thirty six inch gas pipeline through a number of states and counties, including mine, affecting thousands of landowners. It's known as Sabal Trail Transmission, LLC, and is the unholy offspring of Spectra Corp. and NextEra Energy. This is a great primer on the issue, and here's the excellent site of the folks fighting this pipeline.

I get back to my question, how can one foreign corporation (they're from out of state), have so much power vis-a-vis the thousands of landowners and citizens, that the citizens must give up a hundred foot wide swath of their land, along with the depreciation of their property values, not to mention their personal safety, and allow this pipeline to come through? The gas is not even for use in the state of Georgia or the county where I live. However, the general feeling is we have to give in the the corporation's demands. My own County Commission Chairman is quoted as saying, "There's nothing we can do."

Does anyone else see the problem here? Why must we, the citizens and landowners of Lowndes County, Georgia, have to give up our land and security to a foreign corporation of absolutely no benefit to the citizens and landowners of Lowndes County, Georgia? How is this corporation given a privileged status greater than the thousands of people who live here?

We Must Begin Anew

We are in a difficult predicament. For most of the people I know, life is a struggle, accompanied by gnawing, grinding stress. It's the result of an economic system that has become terribly brutal in my lifetime, and continues to get worse. The present dominant paradigm would have us believe there is something called the Free Market, through which we can obtain all our needs and wants. The new conservatives assert it's the Government that's messing things up, and needs to step aside and then all will be utopia. I've heard them and read their stuff. I'm not buying what they're selling.

We've been doing this type of economics for going on forty years. Ever since Reagan we've been deregulating and cutting taxes, with the promise being a vibrant economic activity benefiting all. It has not worked out that way no matter how many iterations we have to go through. It has not been good for hard working people. Since the election of Ronald Reagan, and the ascendance of the modern conservative movement, average working people's income has lost a couple of thousand dollars adjusted for inflation. Working people are still in the throes of the Crash of '08, the Great Recession, the ultimate consequence of conservative economic policy, with unemployment officially just shy of seven percent. You and I know it's at lest twice that. Even low-paying jobs are hard to come by, let alone anything that has a decent wage and future.

At the same time, American worker productivity has gone through the roof over the last forty years. Up until 1980, worker income rose parallel to productivity. Yet while worker productivity continued to sky rocket, they did not reap the benefits of their increased productivity. Where did these profits go? To the executives and shareholders, especially when the shareholders became capital funds, hedge funds, and investment banks. How did they get the profits? Aren't they the ones deciding how the booty gets split up? Yep.

The opposition to this rapaciousness were the unions, the only thing the working man ever had going for him to bargain with his employer, and was the only method workers ever had of getting a better shake. These were decimated in the War on Unions, which began when Reagan declared war on PATCO and fired the air traffic controllers. It is still being waged today against teachers and other government workers, not to mention Republican political interference in the UAW vote at the VW plant in Chattanooga.

This is what is happening on a national scale. The power at that level is tremendous. That's why I think the solution lies in building a new structure from the bottom up. Their are a myriad of ideas out their of people and communities attempting to take back their independence in the economic realm. It has to begin at the local level (city and county) and up from there. That's why I say, we must begin anew.

A Georgia Democrat not Enamored by Michelle Nunn

Listening to major media, one would think Michelle Nunn, daughter of former US Senator, Sam Nunn  (1972-1996), is the only Democratic candidate for retiring senator Saxby Chambliss's seat. There are several other candidates in the field, although it is true none of them has the nepotistic pedigree of Michelle.

I've now lived in south Georgia for fifteen years. Along with seven years in the Atlanta area, I've lived in Georgia longer than the state I grew up, Michigan.It has long been a truism in Georgia that counties outside the Atlanta metro area get the short end of the stick when it comes to state politics and I can attest to that fact.

I am active in my local Democratic Party. Recently, we had the pleasure of two other candidates making the trek down here to present their case to the local party and citizens as to why they should be US Senator, Steen Miles and Dr Branko Radulovachi. I'm not holding my breath that Michelle Nunn will grace us with her presence.

At this moment, I will vote for Steen Miles as the best Democratic candidate for Georgia US Senator.

However, if Michelle Nunn wins the primary, you better believe I will vote for her over Jack Kingston, whom I expect to win the Republican nomination, and happens to be. my former congressman before the 2012 redistricting.

Why Are the Rich Such Whiners?

Several times this week we were treated to ultra-rich being their usual arrogant selves, then somehow getting all defensive when 99% of the people were horrified by their remarks. At the beginning of the week, we were treated to Tom Perkins, billionaire extraordinaire, comparing some slight criticism of his rich ilk, to Kristalnacht and the Holocaust.

Writing from the epicenter of progressive thought, San Francisco, I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its "one percent," namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the "rich." ...This is a very dangerous drift in our American thinking. Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930; is its descendant "progressive" radicalism unthinkable now?

When called out, he apologized for using the word Kristalnacht, "but not the sentiment.".

After solemnly explaining that he’d spoken to Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, Perkins drew an odd distinction, disavowing his use of the word Kristallnacht, but apparently not the broader Nazi comparison.
Then he embarked on a rambling discourse that essentially reiterated the very comments that ignited the furor.

 He still thought criticisms of how the one percent operate was comparable to the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany. Hey, Tom, when you bastards are being rounded up into concentration camps, being hung or shot, and your fortunes appropriated by the government, then we can talk about oppression, but seriously, until then you're just a whiny spoiled rich jerk, with an over inflated idea of his own importance.

Of course, since his comments were printed as an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, the mouthpiece of the American plutocracy, the editorial board printed their own defense of Perkins. What else would we expect from a rag owned by Rupert Murdoch? Murdoch's defending himself and his class.

Then Samantha Bee, at the Daily Show, nailed billionaire Peter Schiff's attitude, "You're worth what you're worth." In his case it was "mentally retarded" earning $2 an hour. When he saw that most people considered him a total ass, he tried to blame the Daily Show, as if it wasn't an accurate portrayal of him.

Finally, we come to Lady Ann Romney. Why the Romney's think anyone in America gives a rat's hoot what they think is beyond me. Still Lady Ann still felt some compulsion to sniff, "We lost, but truly the country lost by not having Mitt as president." Come on, Lady Ann, you lost because most of American rejected you as their rulers, because you and your husband are out to lunch. 

Seriously, the rich demand and get the best of everything. They pretty much live in a world most of the rest never even get to glimpse. It is they that determine our futures, but somehow they are unfairly being put upon by some mild criticism of the way they operate? As they say around here, what whiny a** little b*****s. 

2014: Important Political Year in Georgia

This is a very important political year in Georgia, and a very good possibility for Democratic gains, as long as we Democrats get busy and do some work. I've mentioned before, five dollars and an hour a week will do amazing things. Just everyone pledge to do more than ever. I'll start locally:

The 2010 turncoats maintained their seats in 2012. I'm optimistic that we will field strong candidates against each of them: Amy Carter, Ellis Black, and Tim Golden. They've been in office a long time. What have they done for Valdosta and Lowndes County? Nothing that I know of.  Dexter Sharper is my representative out of Valdosta, and I'm very happy with him.

For the U.S. House of Representatives, we have Tea Party Republican, Austin Scott, as our representative. He's gone two election cycles without a Democratic opponent. Uh, how democratic is that? Seriously, what has Austin Scott done for the citizens of Valdosta, Lowndes County, and Georgia District 8? He has voted with the Republican extremists in DC at every turn, and could be very vulnerable with a serious challenger and well run campaign.

We have an open seat in the US Senate, with the retirement of Saxby Chambliss. On the Republican side there are eight candidates, including three sitting congressmen,: Jack Kingston, Paul Broun, and Phil Gingry. Throwing his hat into the ring is the cousin of former governor Sonny Perdue, David Perdue, a wealthy businessman.

On the Democratic side,we have Michelle Nunn, daughter of long time senator, Sam Nunn, who seems to think because she is Sam's offspring, she has some sort of right to the office, even though she's never run for anything in her life, or had any public experience. I recently had the honor of hearing and meeting Steen Miles. I would love to have this woman representing me in the US Sernate. I think you would, too.

Finally, we come to the governor's house. You know, I once lived just up the road form the governor's mansion, on Pace's Ferry Place in Buckhead, and would often drive by the mansion on Pace's Ferry Road. TBH, it was back in '75 and '76, when Atlanta was just hitting one million, and the Perimeter (285) was way out there. Here we have arguably the most corrupt governor in America, presently under FBI investigation, running for reelection, ostensibly, against Jimmy Carter's grandson. This can be a victory for Democrats, retaking at least one branch of state government, and that ain't bad.

I have to say again, The truth is, our opponents are financed much greater than we. We depend on the people, the grassroots, chipping in what they can, and by our numbers we can level the field against the deep pockets of the Republicans.