The New Whig Movement

Embarrassed on Human Rights Day...

2006-12-09T14:13:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow, December 10, 2006, is Human Rights Day. A day meant to focus the world's attention on the grave violations of human rights that continue across the globe despite humanty's efforts. Still, that there are still widespread human rights violations does not mean progress has not been made...the very fact that such a thing exists as "Human Rights Day" and that abuses are exposed is indicative of the progress we have made in combatting the disgustingly base elements of human nature that lead to such things as blind eyes to rampant poverty and preventable and curable illness, slaughter of innocents, civil rights abuses and torture. The first step is to make it known what horrible things are occuring, for only with public knowledge can accountability be demanded of regimes that practice human rights abuses.

I wish I could tell you that, as an American, I was proud in the efforts of my government in confronting human rights abuses and cooperating with peoples worldwide to rid our earth of such sickening displays of inhumanity. unfortunately, I cannot. Rather, I can only sit here deeply ashamed that my government is largely responsible for doing nothing in the face of poverty and illness while taking a proactive stance, not against dispicable and obvious violations of human rights such as torture, but openly admitting and proudly declaring such violations as prudent policy.

I wish I could tell you that, as a nation with heretofore unimagined prosperity, all of mankind benefits from deeply ingrained American generosity and concern for the plight of our fellow women and men across the world. I wish I could tell you the insane amount of wealth generated by a controlled capitalistic market was being reinvested in a manner consistent with basic human dignity and an effort to lift all workers and their families worldwide out of the depths of poverty to share in the prosperity. I wish I could tell you that the interconnecting of the world had led to America calling for greater protections for all workers and all peoples in order to hitch a ride on the train. Unfortunately, I cannot. Rather, all I am forced to sit here and acknowledge that my government has failed the world...acknowledge that rather than simple measures that would make immeasurable differences in the lives of so many, within this nation and the world, in overcoming the harsh realities of poverty my government chose to hand trillions back to those that do not need it, those who already have more wealth than most nations, those who's greatest concern is which of the five yachts will be ready for sailing on Tuesday. I am forced to acknowledge that rather than using its position in the world to pressure nations into rising standards for workers, the Bush administration is using America to pressure governments into accepting Big Business' race to the bottom. So much good could be done with all this wealth, so little could go such a long way in providing education, housing, health care, and stability to countless people, Americans and our fellow human beings...but instead, the Bush administration gave it away to their friends.

I wish I could tell you that with all the money that American taxpayers throw towards research and development in the pharmaceutical industry no person went without the medicines they needed to keep them alive in this country. I wish I could tell you that with all the capital that America has available, preventable disease was being aggressively fought in impoverished nations where millions are dying unnecessarily. I wish I could tell you that with all this wealth, there was not a child in America that did not have access to a doctor when they needed one. Unfortunately, I cannot. Instead, I am forced to acknowledge that 18,000 people die yearly in this country alone unnecessarily due to lack of proper medical care and medicine. Instead, the Bush administration is raiding buses of elderly folks trying to find medicine that is remotely affordable because the "prescription drug plan" of his would be more aptly titled "Big Drug's Return on its Campaign Contributions." Instead millions of American children are without medical care through no fault of their own. Instead, the Bush administration refuses to allow money earmarked to combat AIDS in Africa to be spent on anything but brand name drugs...effectively cutting the number of sick people that could be saved in half. After the world made the great leap of humanity in declaring health a universal human right...my government is working to deny that right to people simply because they cannot afford to buy access to the white house.

I wish I could tell you that America continued to lead the fight against intolerable brutality and police state-type actions from those in power. I wish I could tell you that America was on the side of the vulnerable masses of the world. I wish I could tell you that American might was fighting to protect those that could not protect themselves. Instead, I am waiting for a Congress to leave that has overseen the destruction of all that was great about America. The most basic of human rights, the very cornerstone of any democratic government and the foundation of all other rights, the right to be free from imprisonment without charge...now given away, even though, when backed into a corner and forced to prove any allegations in a court of law the Bush administration opts to set "the most dangerous" prisoners free. The President of the United States bragging that he violates the civil rights of Americans on a daily basis, that he is above the law despite his office being the leader of a nation founded upon the rule of law...and the legislature and the press lacking the gumption to so much as question his actions, even though everyone is well aware that the actions he ordered are violative of federal laws and punishable by five years in prison. And worst of all, America has become a nation that tortures...the most dispicable act a government can commit and one of the most outrageous human rights abuses imaginable...and the leaders of my government outwardly espouse their commitment to it.

If you tolerate this, then you children will be next. Impeach in '07.

New Whigs. We Are You.

www.myspace.com/thenewwhigmovement

Open Letter to President Bush...

2006-11-06T12:13:00.000-07:00

Dear Mr. Bush:

While great leaders of the past in the time of crisis have instructed us to be not afraid, that we have nothing to fear but fear itself, you told us to be very, very afraid, you told us to be cowards, and then exploited that fear in launching your assault on our democracy.

You preached fear to stoke the flames of xenophobic nativism and smiled for the cameras as you signed into law a wall to exclude brown-skinned spanish speaking immigrants. You exploited the fear you and your cronies created to repeal the words on the plaque Lady Liberty holds. Now, her cheeks rust with the tears of a broken heart as her lamp which once beaconed the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the homeless and the tempest-tost has gone dark and the golden door which it once illuminated slammed in the face of those seeking the promise and hope America once offered.

You preached fear to exploit for support in abandoning mankind’s efforts to limit the scourge of war and launch an aggressive war as an experiment in placing a friendly regime in power over the world’s second largest oil reserves, your plan was to utilize this immoral war as a means to further the interests of your big corporate friends at the likes of KBR (the company that made your family rich), the Carlysle Group (with its historical ties to your family), and Haliburton (with its ties to your friends). Unfortunately for you, America had embraced the notion set forth by Justice Jackson at Nuremberg that no grievances or policies can justify aggressive war, utterly renouncing and condemning it as an instrument of policy. And so you terrorized the American public so they might believe your cause was something other than immoral. We soon learned the fear you planted and exploited had no basis in reality, yet you still preach fear so that we might accept 3,000 American service men and women returning home in flag draped coffins which you refuse to dignify by so much as acknowledging their return to the nation they gave their lives for based on your lying word. You again preach fear so that we might accept the thousands returning home physically and mentally maimed from the occupation which resulted from your lying word. You again preach fear so that we might disregard hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings now horribly disfigured, maimed and slaughtered based upon your lying word as collateral damage.

You preached fear to push through ridiculously large budgets for the military so that you could take money from the American people, from the poor mother working two jobs to support her family, from the children stuck in crumbling schools and without opportunity, from the soldiers who saw their combat pay decreased just as they were being sent into combat without proper protection, from the families of those soldiers who saw their benefits slashed, from the veterans, 45,000 of whom have returned injured from Iraq, who were told they would not receive necessary medical care because the record budgets were just a means to transfer what was owed to them into the pockets of your elite corporate friends. MLK warned us that a nation spending more money on the machinery of death and destruction than on programs of social uplift is a nation approaching spiritual death. Your occupation of Iraq now costs the American people almost $1 billion each week and you use that price tag as an excuse to ask us to sacrifice for the common good by leaving our poor neighbors to fend for themselves, all the while giving trillions of dollars back to your already disgustingly rich contributors. All of this while you boldly claim God’s blessing and endorsement of your despicable war and occupation while Lincoln instructed us not to blindly believe God was on our side, but to sincerely pray that we were on his.

And now you have planted and exploited fear to denigrate our Constitution and its ideals in violation of the very solemn oath you twice uttered. And you exploited the very fear you planted with your lies and your despicable labeling of patriotism as treason to repeal the very law you swore to uphold. You could barely contain your excitement as you signed torture and the death of freedom into law, perhaps remembering that no act of terrorism ever brought down a democracy such as ours, but acts of parliament have managed to close a few.

We cannot defend our freedoms by repealing them. Under your directive the government is spying on your own citizens without establishing probable cause, people are being jailed without charges or due process, and people are being horribly tortured. You tell us it is necessary, trying again to appeal to fear and vengeance. But we are not to be fooled Mr. Bush, for we love our freedom and know that a government willing to treat foreigners unjustly will inevitably treat its own unjustly. We remember Winston Churchill’s words when he declared “the power of the executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious, and the foundation of all totalitarian government” and we deplore your mocking of the sacrifice of generations past in demanding such power.

When asked what form of Government the Constitution created, in recognition of how frail the grand doctrines of democracy and freedom can be, Benjamin Franklin replied “A republic...if you can keep it.” Well Mr. Bush, despite the efforts of this sham Congress filled with faux representatives in ceding that republic and our freedoms to your whim, the American People will keep it and the freedom, life, liberty, justice, opportunity and hope it offers. We recognize that no act of terror has ever brought down a democracy such as ours, but that acts of parliament have closed a few. You do not represent America Mr. Bush, end your campaign of fear and vengeance which so denigrates her ideals. We will not allow your to terrorize the people into accepting your tyranny any longer.

Finally, we offer my sincerest hopes for you and your memory...

May your God have mercy on you for your blasphemous perversion of his teachings in the furtherance of your campaign of destruction...

May true Americans, past, present and future, condemn you for the carnage you have done in their name, both to their nation and their world...

And may history remember you as the architect of a horrendous attack on the best of humanity from it's most base emotions of fear and vengeance, the most disastrous and apocalyptic of results only narrowly averted by the better angels of our nature.

Sincerely,

The New Whigs of America

the dead keep piling up amidst more incompetence...

2006-10-30T12:11:00.000-07:00

with a day to go the death toll for the United States' Armed Services hit 101 for this month...the first month since January, 2005, that 100 American families will welcome their loved one home in a flag drapped coffin without so much as a simple acknowledgment of their loved one's returning home, albeit in a pine box, from the men who sent them to Iraq to die in their not-so-grand expirement to reshape the middle east by forcefully placing an allied government on top of the world's second largest oil reserves. the official American dead from this misbegotten war now number 2,814...suddenly 3,000 is just around the corner. and lest we forget...the wounded now number almost 45,000...well, the wounded that wear the American flag on their uniform anyhow...well, the wounded that wear the American flag on their uniform and the administration releases their information. estimates on Iraqi dead in this immoral crusade run as high as 650,000 thousand...which really is not so far fetched when you recognize that throughout the 90's almost 90 percent of all casualties were civilian (and yes, only counting American military dead, that means approximately 300,000 dead civilians).

all of this in the midst of our learning of yet another heart wrenching failure of this administration when it comes to Iraq...seriously, if you are going to destroy all that America once stood for, drag lady liberty through the muck whilst ravaging and urinating on her, devestate an already devestated nation, see to a couple hundred thousand innocents being killed or horribly maimed, and dismantle all that humanity has done to limit the scourge of war unless absolutely necessary you might as well have the courtesy of being competent in overseeing the disgusting immoral war which you unleashed upon the world.

remember how the administration and its parrots kept telling us to "stay the course" (which apparently they never said...must have been the liberal media touching up videos) and that we would stank down as the Iraqis stood up. well, they didn't actually plan on giving the Iraqis the tools to stand up. your tax dollars were sent out by the truckload to pay for weapons for the new Iraqi army and security forces ("new" because these boneheads had the brilliant idea of sending the existing one home...without pay...and with their weapons...thereby setting loose a few hundred thousand trained, armed, and pissed off young men...oops...and "your" because you aren't a member of the truly wealthy elite...they got their tax dollars back, so not only do they not have to worry about fighting this war, they don't even have to worry about financing it...instead they just profit from it...and ain't it always nice to find those taking up residence in the White House in bed with war profiteers?). well...those weapons did not make it there too often..and when they did, they didn't come with things like replacement parts or anything else necessary for their maintenance...like say, trained persons.

while to normal folks like New Whigs that appears crack-smokingly stupid, it makes perfect sense when you understand that every idiotic decision they have made ended up making a few already fantastically wealthy folks just a little more fantastically wealthy without having to do much for it. afterall...the longer it takes Iraqis to stand up, the more expensive the reconstruction will be...and the more money the military-industrial complex will gather...which means the likes of haliburton (cheney), kbr (the walker family, as in george herbert walker bush), and the carlysle group (daddy bush again) will make an obscene amount of money, or continue to make an obscene amount of money anyways...and never even have to do what little they are asked anywhere near effectively, or even adequately, to "earn" it.

welcome to bush's America...where thousands of American families mourn their dead who never returned from a war financed in every way by Americans not lucky enough to be wealthy enough not to have to know family or friends in Iraq or to be war profiteers while hoarding their tax cuts.

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taxation without representation...

2006-10-22T12:04:00.000-06:00

as kids in class we learned early on that denouncing such a practice became the rallying cry of our budding nation. well, those of us fortunate enough to have a textbook of our own, and a classroom with lights and without puddles and exposed wiring, and a teacher being paid according to the importance of their position...we learned it early on. those that did not have those things, those that went to school wondering which of their classmates they would learn was the latest victim of senseless violence, those that missed that day because they had to help in the fields when the family farm no longer provided enough for help, those that missed that day because they had to wait all day at the emergency room when it was the only place for their sick grandmother to go, those that were forced into crumbling schools with decades old textbooks not plentiful enough for more than every third student to have one, those forced away from their families to bording schools to teach them the white man's ways, those that were left behind...they did not learn such things. but they did learn a valuable lesson tied to that rallying cry...they learned that a nation founded on such a simple idea as not making anyone do anything without giving them a say in it has now embraced that which its founders fought against centuries ago. for them, everything in this country is done without representation...for them, there is no end to taxation without representation. and for them this country must do better.

barack obama was elected to the United States senate in a landslide a few years ago. he was the second black american to serve in that office in the last 134 years. 134 years...two black senators. are we to believe there have not been more than two black people since 1870 willing and able to serve in the United States senate? not that things are much better for hispanics with a whopping two senators and 24 representatives in congress. and they both are heavily representatives in comparison to the hundreds of indian peoples...who have none. how do we allow this to continue?

perhaps it is because anyone who points out that our representative democracy does not represent democracy when it comes to non-whites in this country a whole bunch of white folk stand up and point fingers and yell "race card!" then they go on to wax poetic about how this nation should be "color blind" as they try to use the words of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. in their linguistic arsenal. unfortunately, the vast majority of the time it is because of a new racism, a less overt racism, and a divisive politics played mostly by the Republican Party in an attempt to find an imposing "they" for the growing number of whites who are losing ground to blame to justify voting against their own interests. they forget that MLK dreamed of a color blind society, but that he repeatedly pointed the need to address the effects of societal racism on people of color which had worked over centuries to slow the stream of opportunity for them to nothing but an occasional trickle.

when minorities are consistently locked out of the political process, but for the nominal representative that our leaders like to point to as "proof" that they aren't building upon and expanding systemic racism (the political equivalent of "one of my best friends is black/latino/indian"), they are repeatedly subject to taxation without representation...largely because the few areas that minorities are represented, over-represented, in this nation are in poverty and prison.

which is why it is so important for political leadership and their cronies to continue to play "the race card" by decrying anyone who wants to honestly talk about race as someone "playing the race card" and use their talk of "color blindness" to give losing whites a "they" to fear and blame rather than examining just how much they too are being subjected to taxation without representation.

taxation in the form of a growing tax burden on the middle and lower class while the wealthiest pay less and less of their fair share whilst enjoying almost exclusive access to political leadership and policy making...

taxation in the form of being forced to work harder for longer hours for the same pay while prices rise...

taxation in the form of suffering when energy costs soar and skipping meals becomes a necessity to stay warm...

taxation in the form of having to live without adequate health care and spend hours in line at the emergency room because it is the only place they will not be turned away...

taxation in the form of miserable, crumbling, failing schools with inadequate resources and burned out teachers once full of idealism, but now only full of bitterness and sorrow...

taxation in the form of criminal sanctions increasingly designed to put them out of sight and out of mind while responding to the destruction of lives by the elite with wealth and access with a slap on the wrist...

taxation in the form of sending their loved ones to war to fight for a system that excludes them from its benefits while the elite pull strings to keep their loved ones at home (or awal in the national guard)...

taxation in the form of going to war and risking their lives for a system that excludes them from its benefits while noticing that the men and women fighting shoulder to shoulder with them never seem to come from the gated community on the hill...

taxation without representation is alive and well. the nation is shutting the door of opportunity on the poor while asking them to sacrifice more and more to keep the system rolling along for the limited elite who receive the windfall.

of course the same people that claim examining race in this country is "playing the race card" while it threatens their hold on the nation through a politics of fear and bigotry will claim that examining poverty in this country is "class warfare" - another catchy tune to whistle for the elite while they line their pockets and the poor support the policies that are destroying them. well, it very well may be class warfare...declared by the elite and their leadership in the White House and Congress against the working people of America.

so this november, when someone tries to write you off for "playing the race card" or boldly denounces you as declaring "class warfare"...remind them we did not declare this war, but rest assured we will see it done...remind them with your vote by refusing to throw it away on politicians that support the elite over the rest and that refuse to deal with the lasting effects of racist policies.

vote New Whig.

so you want to stop abortion...

2006-10-21T12:07:00.000-06:00

Democrats will always be fighting a losing battle if they make abortion an all-or-nothing issue. it boggles my mind that they, and many liberals, continue to do this time and time again after seeing the disasterous results - conservative Republicans are stealing millions of votes and elections with their anti-abortion stance (nevermind that their insistence on the sanctity of human life apparently ends at birth when it becomes not only acceptable, but laudable, to kill others to show that killing is wrong and to talk of innocent children as mere "collateral damage"... but the inherent hypocrisy of the modern Republican party, hijacked by right-wing zeolot extremists is a whole nother blog). winning elections by declaring anti-abortion views is mind-boggling in itself given that Republicans have never actually done anything to lower the abortion rate in this country, which is the highest in the world. but then, incompetence rarely seems to hurt them with their base...even when it kills. having the highest abortion rate in the world is not something to be proud of...and, contrary to popular conservative rhetoric, liberals aren't.

if Republicans were serious about stopping abortion they would not focus on criminalizing an already agonizing decision for many women. but that is the thing, they aren't serious about stopping abortion, because they would lose the single most effective issue they have for holding onto power. afterall, the American people are willing to pay higher taxes if it means better service, access to health care, improved educational opportunities...the American people do not like to be aggressors...the American people believe that big business is more of a danger than big government...basically, the American people by and large don't agree with a damn thing the Republicans stand for...and because of it, abortion may be the single most important issue for right-wing nutjobs to retain power as they are exposed as frauds on every other promise they have made (not that they aren't frauds on this issue...remember, we do have the highest abortion rates in the world...under conservative leadership).

you want to stop abortion? criminalizing it won't do a thing except turn good woman who are backed into a corner with nowhere else to turn into felons. afterall...has drug use declined in this country with stiff criminal penalties? did alcohol consumption stop during prohibition? has violent crime decreased with tougher sentences? no...no...and no. criminalizing abortion will only mean that women with no other choice, often abandoned by the man after he got his, will not only be told they must either ruin their lives and the future life of their fetus or find an unsafe, unsanitary corner and a coat hanger. it will push the gains women have made back in a major way.

we refuse to tell a woman that no matter the circumstances she absolutely must accept the burden of childrearing because she "must accept personal responsibility"...nevermind that men often get away without having to accept personal responsibility in the same circumstances. we refuse to tell a woman she must choose between having a child and going through the trauma of a rape prosecution. we refuse to tell a woman she must find a way to support another human being when, even after working hard and doing all that we ask, society does not provide her with enough to support herself. i refuse to add "criminal" to the stigma of an already devastating decision.

in the end, if conservative Republicans were serious about their anti-abortion stance and the sanctity of human life, they would support a plethora of programs that would help in shrinking the rate of abortion in this country. first and foremost, we need to get serious about kids having kids in this country rather than just giving it lip-service everytime Maury brings out a scantily clad 13 year old. teenage pregnancy needs serious attention...and the easiest and cheapest (since conservatives always complain about society spending the vast accumulated fortunes of the American aristocracy earned through the hard work of sitting on their ass and watching stock prices) way is through education about, and access to, contraception. one would think this would be obvious as teenage pregnancy rates have not kept pace with teenage sex rates...except when contraception is absent or not properly used. kids know this...they know that not having sex is the best way not to get an std or pregnant...but they are still having sex and need to be seriously told how to go about it without getting pregnant and given access to methods. no, giving a kid a condom won't make them immediately want to go out and have sex, they already want to immediately go out and have sex...it will make them want to use a condom when they have sex.

and education and access to contraception shouldn't stop with teens. women of all ages need access. and while a man could most likely get it to cover a pill to make his erection last for days...how many women have health care coverage that covers contraception? universal access to adequate health care will mean more women using contraception, less unwanted pregnancies, and fewer abortions. and it doesn't have to cost you a cent...it may cost those 2 percent at the very top that sit on their money and don't spend it a few cents, but they can do without the twentieth vacation home bought with money society helped them accumulate.

for too many women an unwanted pregnancy presents two options...have an abortion or lose your job or career. if a women is pregnant and decides to have a baby she must be free to do so without fear of losing her job, derailing her career or going without appropriate prenatal care (again lack of health care rears its ugly head) or even without electricity or food. give women options and the abortion rate will fall. take away their options, and we will continue to surpass every other nation in abortions.

so next time a conservative Republican tells you they are pro-life...tell them to put their money where their mouth is and support policies that will actually help abortion rates to decline...and remind them that "the sanctity of human life" means all human life...especially that after birth.

having a direct line to God means never having to say you're sorry...

2006-10-20T12:10:00.000-06:00

so that horrible tyrant that rules north korea with an iron fist, forcing millions of his people into abject poverty without allowing them any basic rights while wasting the nations dwindling resources on military expenditures that actually make them less safe and pissing off the world community did something unthinkable...he apologized...for testing a nuclear device. suddenly all that talk from the right-wing nutjobs that claim to be our "representatives" about how crazy kim jong il is and how he is a ticking time bomb seem a little more like needless belligerent posturing (conveniently while their poll numbers are dipping to all-time lows).

so that horrible tyrant that rules the united states with an iron fist, forcing millions of his people into abject povety without allowing them basic rights while wasting the nations dwindling resources on military expenditures that are actually making them less safe and pissing off the world community...well, he hasn't apologized for shit. not for the hundreds of thousands of iraqis who are dust thanks to his war, not for the thousands of american families who will not see their loved ones again, not for refusing to dignify their sacrifice with so much as the simple acknowledgment of their flag-drapped coffins (perhaps he is ashamed of our soldiers), not for the tens of thousands american service men and women who are now maimed, not for the war itself - launched as a test case for remaking the middle east in his grand vision (not in any way a noble cause), not for stealing from the poor of this country and handing the money to his obscenely rich friends, not for working to undercut the child tax credit and take it away only from those in the lowest tax brackets, not for attempting to rewrite discrimination into the constitution, not for leaving millions of american children behind - perhaps because so many of them happen to be minorities, not for breaking every international promise this country ever made - except those involving the needless slaughter of innocents, not for working to increase the number of nuclear weapons at his disposal while decrying any attempt by anyone else to garner those weapons (until they already have them...then, regardless of how tyrannical you may be and how much you hate freedom and individual rights and liberties, you can be our friend - especially if you are conveniently located near the global gas station)...and the list goes on and on. so tell me mr. bush...what exactly is your criteria for membership in the axis of evil?

kim jong il apologized for testing a nuclear device. for testing one. perhaps that does not seem incredible to you...until you note that you cannot think of one other instance in history where a nation, especially an "evil" nation has apologized for testing weaponry. so the axis of evil apologizes for testing nuclear devices underground...i wonder when the japanese people will get their apology for our "testing" a couple nuclear devices over the heads of their women and children.

no, our nation has never apologized for the world's only nuclear attacks...and yes, this should deeply shame you.

The conservative movement lied to you. They betrayed you. Join the New Whigs.

2006-10-14T10:32:00.000-06:00

Liberty requires the protection of law against the evils which menace the health, safety, morals, and welfare of the people. West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 300 U.S. 379, 391 (1937).

The conservative movement betrayed their promises to the American people. The big business elite which lead the way lied to you in order to garner more for themselves while leaving the American people holding a bag full of nothing but empty promises while their neighborhoods deteriorate, their homes crumble, their schools fail their children, their families go without medicine, their wages are frozen, and their tax burden far beyond their fair share. It is time for the American people to reclaim that which is rightfully their's. It is time for this country to once again return to the American tradition of progress towards greater protection of individual liberty and freedom through protections against the actions of the conservative elite and their big business cronies which menace the health, safety, morals, and welfare of the people.

The conservative elite told you tax breaks for their big business cohorts would help your family. They told you giving more money back to big business would mean it would be reinvested in you. They told you it would mean more jobs for your neighborhood, they told you it would mean more money for the big whigs running the company to provide health care for you and your coworkers. But now you look around and you wonder when that investment, your investment, in the elite will make it's way down to you. You look at your paycheck and notice the numbers have not increased in years while your cost of living has shot up well beyond the measly 300 bucks the government gave you in an attempt to buy your acquiscence into the conservative elite handing back much bigger checks to their big business friends. You see your paycheck going less and less far every month while they vote themselves raise after raise to coincide with the money given back to their big business friends. You look at your children and realize they still go without proper medical care while they are now on a free lunch program at school. All the while, that huge check that the conservative elite gave to their big business friends went directly in someone else's bank account or sent overseas. And you are left holding the tab.

They told you they would get you off the welfare rolls and onto the employment rolls. Only now you find there is nowhere to go when your children are hungry and the electricity is turned off because the only training they gave you was for a job at Walmart, and then they told Walmart it does not have to pay you the full value of your work. You find your children are sick and there is nothing you can do but get in line for hours at the emergency room because the big business you are stuck working for after all the small businesses in the neighborhood were forced to shut their doors will not spend a miniature portion of it's record profits to provide you with basic health benefits.

They told you they were looking out for the American worker when they got tough on undocumented workers crossing the border in search of a better life. They told you they were looking out for you and trying to make sure that American jobs went to Americans. But then you wonder why the factory in your town is shutting down after some elite big whig decided to send those jobs overseas, even after his big tax break.

They told you the economy is going great, they told you to just look at the record high stock market. You wonder, if the economy is going so great, why is my pay not even keeping up with inflation? You see the stock prices increase and record profits for the giant corporations run by big business elite who fund the conservative policies and yet you have to take on a second job to maintain anything like the lifestyle of your parents. The stock prices rise and they tell you it will mean more money for more jobs for your community and for raises in your pay and for health care to you and your family. Only it disappears into the pockets of their big business friends, just as the tax break did. And again, you are left holding the tab.

They tell you they are solving the problems with your failing schools. They tell you they will leave no child behind. But you look around and see that every child in your neighborhood school is being left behind, and the answer of the conservative elite was to take even more of the already incredibly limited resources out of the school. They tell you the solution is to privatize education. But you look around and see tuition at private colleges sky-rocketing and well beyond the reach of your family and you wonder how it is possible that the same situation in your neighborhood schools would benefit your community.

They told you bankrupty laws needed to be altered because too many were taking advantage of the system. But after the accident at the job that left you hospitalized, and your employer not providing medical insurance even after the big tax breaks it received as a friend of the conservative elite, you find yourself completely unable to pay the bills and support your family. And the bankrupty judge tells you you still must pay the giant corporation that now owns you because it provided the credit (at 30 percent) to pay for the hospital stay which your employer and the conservative elite running the show refused to help with, every single penny. And then, just when you thought everything would be alright because your pension would be there to support your family even if workman's comp was off the table, you find out that the bankruptcy judge did not tell the big business that refused to pay for your health care the same he told you. No, the big business elite declared bankruptcy and took your pension away before combining with even bigger business, and the conservative elite that was running the show made off with his golden parachute.

They told you they would give you a prescription drug plan. Only you look at the three-inch thick "choice" you have and realize you have no ability to take advantage of any of it. You look at the prices of your medicine and realize that you are paying much more now than you ever were before, and that after spending your life paying into the system you are not getting your money's worth. The plan they offered gave drug companies huge profits, and you are left catching a bus to Mexico or Canada so you can afford your pills.

They tell you they are giving you clean air. But you hear your children coughing through the night, you hear their wheezing as they try and play through the smog that the conservative elite told their big business friends not to worry about cleaning up. You see the bills for your children's asthma medicine pile up, and you wonder how you will pay for it after the corporation you work for cut your medical benefits, even after it's ownership received a fat check from the conservative elite's tax breaks.

They tell you if you just work hard and persevere you will get ahead. And so you went out and got the only job left in the neighborhood after their big business friend took the factory overseas. You work hard every day to put food on the table and a roof over your family's head because you believe that in America, if you work hard, you will be taken care of. But then they refuse to demand big business give you fair pay for a fair day's work.

They told you they were going to bring personal responsibility and morals back to Washington and the White House. But now you look around and see child molesters heading their efforts to protect children, you see conservative elite walking around K Street pocketing millions while paying off congressman with million dollar golf trips overseas, you see the truth being covered up while the nation is sent to war, you see the rights of voters trampled as the conservative elite applaud the efforts. All the while every one of them plays pass the buch, refusing to own up to any mistakes, refusing to take personal responsibility for anything, refusing to own up to their own moral shortcomings.

They told you they supported the troops. But you wonder why your son, your daughter, your brother, your sister, your mother, or your father had to go into combat without proper protection, even as billions are ciphoned into the hands of the big business friends of the elite in the White House. You wonder why, after all that has gone wrong, the only option they have to offer is to stick it out to avoid losing face. You wonder if they will build another wall on the national mall and put your loved one's name next to thousands more and try to call it even.

They said they were making a "Contract with America." Only they did not fill you in on a little secret of contract law, that contractual obligations can be avoided if it is good for business. And at every turn, when it has been good for the big business friends of the conservative elite, they have avoided their obligations to the American people. It is time to take back your government from big business and an elite that does not have your interest at heart. Join the New Whig Movement...be a part of history.

Why We Are Here...

2006-10-05T10:30:00.001-06:00

The following is the text of a speech given by New Whig Founder and Chairman, Paul Linnenburger, at the World Can't Wait rally in Albuquerque, New Mexico on October 5, 2006.

The fundamentalist and fundamentally un-American leadership in the White House is attacking everything positive that America once stood for. They are doing so without regard for the loud and gathering voices of opposition among the population, your voices. But now those voices are gathering in over 200 cities nationwide, and they are marching in solidarity as True Americans that believe in the rule of law rather than the rule of the sword, that believe in true liberty, equality and freedom, and that abhor Bush turning the Beacon on the Hill into the flashpoint of a muzzle.

We are here to tell Mr. Bush to stop hindering the scientific community in its attempts to cure disease.

We are here because we are concerned for our children. Children who, if Mr. Bush has his way, will continue to fall farther behind the global community because they will not be taught science that conflicts with his fundamentalist beliefs. Children who are being poisoned by the polluted air they breathe and water they drink. Children who will be left to suffer the wrath of mother nature because Mr. Bush refuses to accept that global warming, a preventable catastrophe, is looming just over the horizon.

We are here because women enjoy the strides this nation has made towards gender equality and we refuse to accept that a woman must be forced into child-rearing and left unable to choose the path of her life the same as a man.

We are here because we recognize that when two adults are in love they should be entitled to publically declare that love and maintain equal status with other couples in the same position.

We are here to denounce attempts to rewrite discrimination into the Constitution.

We are here to stand against xenophobia which defines hard-working, law-abiding peoples seeking a better life as a threat to security simply because English is not their first language.

We are here to condemn a President who stood by and did nothing as thousands in New Orleans were left for dead by their government.

We are here to declare that anyone who works for a living should earn a living.

We are here because the right of habeas corpus granted in the Magna Carta was an advancement of freedom that should never have been reversed.

We are here because the founders of this nation meant what they wrote in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment, and when the protections they guaranteed are brushed aside it is the innocent that have the most to fear.

We are here because we dread nuclear war and the suicidal path Mr. Bush has laid out for the human race, ensuring continued proliferation of nuclear weapons and a return of escalating arms races and being one itchy trigger finger away from nuclear holocaust.

We are here because democracy within nations cannot be had whilst the President denigrates democracy among nations.

We are here because, as this country laid out at Nuremberg, the launching of aggressive, preventive war is one of the greatest crimes a nation's leaders can commit.

We are here because torture is always wrong, incredibly inhuman and inherently evil.

We are here because tens of thousands of innocent humans are not "collateral damage."

We are here because thousands of American families will never see their loved ones again because of the lies of Mr. Bush.

We are here to send a message to President Bush. We are here to say "You do not represent us. We are not torturers. We are not fascists. We are not war-mongers. Step down Mr. Bush! America was a great country. We want it back!"

You Can't Afford to Wait if...

2006-10-02T10:29:00.000-06:00

The fundamentalist and fundamentally un-American leadership in the White House and Washington is attacking everything good that America once stood for. They are doing so without regard for the loud and gathering voices of opposition among the population they somehow represent through ignoring. This Thursday, October 5th peoples in over 150 cities across the country will gather to demand the representative democracy actually represent democracy. You may feel you are too busy to take the time to add your presence to the movement, that your time is too important to spend speaking out against the policies of your un-American leaders because life seems fine for you at the moment and you can wait to see if things really get bad.

Well you are wrong, you cannot wait. Our democracy has already degraded to a point beyond recognition. If any of the following applies to you, you cannot afford to wait...

You or anyone you know is now suffering from, or may in the future suffer from any number of horrible diseases the worldwide scientific community is seeking to combat through the marvels of modern technology and use of frozen, otherwise wasted embryos. This administration is doing everything it can to sink this burgeoning field of study which offers so much hope to alleviate the suffering and untimely deaths of millions of people worldwide because it does not fit with their fundamentalist religious outlook, which, ironically is fundamentally un-Christian at its core.

You want your children to receive a well-rounded education. This administration and its allies are seeking to destroy the foundation of science education in your schools because they do not agree with their fundamentalist religious views. They are doing so at a time when the world is passing American children by in math and science and setting this country up for serious problems retaining an edge in technological fields.

You are a woman who enjoys the advances towards gender equality over the last few decades. This administration and its supporters hold a fundamentalist view that seeks to relegate women back solely to a sphere they fought long and hard to gain access out of.

You believe women should have the opportunity to determine the path of their life the same that men do. This administration is attacking birth control in an alarming way in an effort to return to a day when women were punished for their inability to control their sexual urges by being forced into childrearing while the father managed to avoid any such penalty.

You believe that consenting adults in love should be entitled to publically declare that love and maintain equal status with other consenting adults in love. This administration is trying to tell you who you can and cannot marry.

You, your friends, or your family are Latino. This administration and its followers have declared that the presence of hard-working, law-abiding, tax-paying individuals who are seeking a better life for themselves and their family are a threat to national security, but only if they have darker skin and speak Spanish. This xenophobic response denigrates your culture while trampling on the declaration the Statue of Liberty makes to the peoples of the world.

You believe anyone working for a living should earn a living. This administration and its followers outright refuse to demand your employer pay you even the minimum necessary to maintain your basic dignity and be allowed to even attempt to pursue your own happiness.

You dread nuclear war. This administration proudly touts its record in advancing the cause of all-out nuclear war by pumping everything it can into efforts to develop nuclear weapons for use in all aspects of war and continued first strike capabilities. In the process, everything they have done has ensured the continued proliferation of nuclear weapons, escalating arms races, and a return to living on the edge of nuclear holocaust.

Your children's health and welfare is important to you. This administration has outright refused to accept complete agreement in the scientific community on the dangers of environmental degredation, instead promoting further such degredation in an attempt to squeeze a few more dollars into the pockets of their friends while your children will be left to deal with the wrath of mother nature and the entirely preventable diseases associated with polluted air, land and water.

You believe that democracy within nations cannot be accomplished by denigration of democracy among nations. This administration has done more in the last 6 years to dismantle mankind's efforts to rid humanity of the scourge of war than any terrorist organization could have hoped to accomplish. They are doing so with a frightening fundamentalist exceptionalism that has led to the downfall of every global hegemon in the past.

You believe rogue states must be stopped. This administration has blatantly ignored aspects of domestic and international law, generations in the making, designed to contain the use of force unless absolutely necessary and even then within basic standards of human decency. In doing so, it is acting in exactly the manner of those governments it claims are "rogue states" and severely undermining global and national security.

You believe, as the American-established Nuremberg Tribunal believed, that launching aggressive, preventive war is one of the greatest crimes against humanity a nation's leaders can commit. The Bush Doctrine accepts that which this country and the world disavowed but for the most horrific regimes the world has seen, preventive and aggressive war, a tactic utilized by Nazi Germany to begin the horror that became World War II and the Holocaust.

You are a minority seeking equal representation in American democracy. This administration and its minions, both Republican and Democrat, have systematically attempted to undermine the ability of minority groups to obtain equal access to government. They have done so as a supreme power grab in an attempt to shut you out of the electoral process and move the government farther and farther from that which America was meant to be, a nation progressing towards more freedom, more equality, more justice, and more liberty.

You believe that when the founders of this nation wrote the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment they meant what they said. This administration has consistently denigrated the most basic and fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution and its Amendments. Contrary to centuries of tradition they seek to spy on American citizens without probable cause, and to hold and detain anyone on the whim of their desires without due process and the rule of law.

You understand the significance of the 800 year old right to petition under the writ of habeas corpus in order to make the Government justify its continued detention of you. This administration and its minions have now written into the United States Code that the very right that birthed our legal system is no longer applicable if Mr. Bush so declares.

You believe that when the human race got together and declared torture a despicable act that could never be condoned the human race was in the right. This administration has done everything possible to rationalize a tactic that is always wrong, incredibly inhuman, and inherently evil.

You refuse to accept that hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings is acceptable "collateral damage" and that close to 3,000 American service men and women have died and tens of thousands more been maimed based on lies these people told you.

America was a great country. We want it back.

There cannot be democray within nations if there is no democracy among nations...

2006-09-30T10:28:00.000-06:00

Long ago, in 1837, Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote in his visionary work Locksley Hall, giving voice to a dream we grapple with still today

For I dipt the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonders that would be;

Saw the heavans fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilotsof the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales;

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a ghostly dew
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue;

Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,
With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the thunder-storm;

Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.

There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.

Venezuela's democratically elected president (whom the conservative movement in America tried to have overthrown - although they failed as they have failed at just about everything else they have tried, except for turning the world towards instability, chaos and destruction) gave a speech recently in the UN. Here in America our media decided it would play the nationalist card (which is amusing because whenever anyone else plays the nationalist card we are appalled and act as though they are the next Hitler) and only talk about the outrage we should feel because of the insult to the president, without addressing the true meaning of his speech, without covering the ideas for UN reform in the speech, and without mentioning why it is that much of the world feels that our president is the world's greatest terrorist.

If you can bring it upon yourself to get past that he called Bush the devil (a comparison that Jesus himself may make if he were around today) and look at the body of his speech, you may find yourself amazed that it is in tune with that wild and crazy idea that this country, and much of the anglo world once embraced...democracy among nations. True democracy among all peoples, with the freedom, opportunity, liberty and equality that comes follows. In essence, the basics of American ideals and values. Those same ideals and values that this group has brushed aside for their inconvenience. Those same ideals, that this group would rather "go it alone" than recognize.

Bush has one thing right...freedom is not free. It is time to take it back. Stand up, walk with people that understand what it truly means to be American, tell Bush and his henchmen "NO MORE!" Your voice can only be ignored if you accept not being heard. This is not the America we love. This is not the America we know. This is not the America we want. America cannot wait any longer. The world cannot wait. On October 5th we will stand up and demand recognition of democracy in this nation.

October 5th. Stand up and be heard. worldcantwait.org.

The World Can't Wait...

2006-09-23T10:23:00.000-06:00

What has history taught us about impeachable offenses? What have we learned about the power of our representatives to hold the person occupying the office of the presidency accountable for "high crimes and misdemeanors"? It seems taking a conservative stance on the reunification process when those very representatives seek a much more radical approach is at least questionable enough behavior to warrant the question. We all assume that taking an active role in politically motivated burglary and the ensuing coverup most likely qualified. We know that a question of perjury warrants a vote. What about acts that qualify as "international terrorism" under the United States Code and implementing, supporting and furthering a regime of "torture" as defined by that same body of domestic law? What about instigating preventive warfare, that which the American prosecutor at Nuremberg calls deplorable and inexcusable? What about aggressive war, what that same tribunal, representing the very basic ideals of the "civilized world," declared the greatest crime against humanity imaginable? What if all of this is done while abusing the trust the American people have placed in the office of the Presidency? What if all of this is done at the cost of thousands of American lives, and tens of thousands of innocent lives in other lands? If simple burglary is impeachable, how is unconstitutional, illegal and un-American waging of war not?

This administration has abandoned true American ideals in favor of a fundamentalist exceptionalism the world has not seen since Rome descended into barbaric chaos. They have instituted and supported a regime that turns American service members into war criminals, and then fall guys as they avoid all culpability. They responded to the deaths of 3,000 people on September 11th with the un-American traits of hatred, vengeance and violence. They have ignored the demands of the very Constitution and laws they were sworn to uphold. They have brought the United States to a point where, rather than holding true to the very ideals we demand others adhere to, those serving our country are placed in a position where there is doubt whether or not they are acting in accordance with basic human rights recognized in domestic and international law.

The American people do not support such action, but they want to act as though you do not matter. They want to ignore you because they know they cannot respond to your demands. They seek to sweep you under the rug because their actions are deplorable and not defendable. They label you un-American in hopes that you will be scared into silence, as if being a warmongering, untruthful, law-dodging, simplistic fundamentalist is American. No, it is they who are un-American. It is they who have raped the very basic American ideals to attempt to rationalize their irrational drive to unnecessary war. An unnecessary war that has now sent thousands of America's sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, neighbors and friends home in boxes draped in the flag with tens of thousands more returning horribly maimed, physically and emotionally. An unnecessary war that is now responsible for the violent deaths of Iraqi civilians at the rate of over 3,000 each month. An unnecessary war that has undone decades of work by the global community in avoiding the deplorable death and destruction that represents the most base elements of human nature unless it is absolutely necessary and all other channels of dispute resolution have been utterly exhausted. An unnecessary war that ignores that in this day and age, with weaponry capable of extinguishing the human race, setting such a precedent is suicide. An unnecessary war with those pulling the strings insisting on it being waged with inhuman brutality. Those who would lead this nation into such a war must be held accountable for their actions.

On October 5th people across this nation will stand up and demand accountability for those responsible for soiling the legacy of America as one of a steady march towards expanded freedom and democracy for all. They will march in solidarity to reclaim their rightful title of true American. True Americans, those that believe in the rule of law rather than the rule of the sword. Those that understand there cannot be democracy within nations unless there is democracy among nations. Those that understand that the innocent are those with the most to fear when constitutional protections are brushed aside. Those that believe torture is wrong, always. Those that understand that the Beacon on the Hill was never meant to become the flashpoint of a muzzle.

Stand with your fellow Americans and be counted. Demand recognition of American ideals and accountability from those that pillage them. October 5th, 9:00 a.m., the corner of University and Central. The World Can't Wait.

The Two-Tier Economy...

2006-08-05T10:25:00.000-06:00

The following is an excerpt from Moral Politics by George Lakoff.

There is a persisitent and terribly damaging myth about our economy, namely, that in the American economy poverty can, in principle, be eliminated - if only there is better education, more jobs, more opportunity, and if people will just work hard, save, invest, and pull themselves up by their bootstraps. This is simply false. Our economy as it is presently structured requires substantial poverty.

The present American econmoy requires that certain jobs have low wages: cleaning houses, caring for children, preparing fast food, picking vegetables, waiting on tables, doing heavy labor, washing dishes, washing cars, gardening, checking groceries, and so on. In order to support the lifestyles of three-quarters of our population, one-quarter of our workforce must be paid low wages. These are the people who make two-income families possible, because they take care of the house and the children, allow fast-food outlets, restaurants and hotels to exist, and perform other tedious, unpleasant, unsafe, and physically difficult jobs that support middle, upper-middle, and upper class life.

It is a myth that all the people so employed can lift themselves up by their bootsraps, get educated, spend thriftily, save, invest, and get out of poverty - that is, to get decent housing in a safe neighborhood, adequate food, health care, and education for their children. Even if all the present lower-tier workers moved into the upper tier, the country would still need a quarter of the population, working at low wages, to take care of the children, clean the house, work in fast food places, pick the lettuce, weed the lawns, wait on tables, wash the cars, and so on. This economy absolutely relies on hard-working people whose pay does not reflect their contribution to the economy.

In short, those on the ground floor of our economy are holding up those on the upper floors - and they work hard to do so. But the structure of our economy does not allow their pay to be commensurate with their contribution to the economy as a whole.

A free-market economy is one in which labor is seen as a commodity that people should be able to sell for what it is worth. But in our economy, individual employers cannot, for the most part, afford to pay lower-tier workers a wage that reflects what they contribute to the eocnomy overall.

In an important sense, lower-tier workers are working for the conomy as a whole, since they make upper-tier lifestyles and incomes possible. In a well-run market, people should be able to get what their labor is worth. But we do not have a well-run market. What is needed is a market correction - a way that the conomy as a whole can reward those whose labor it depends on but cannot adequately pay. The machanism is simple: a negative income tax (that is, a serious expansion of the earned income tax credit).

What do lower-tier workers deserve for making middle and upper-class lifestyles possible? What is the least they deserve? Adequate health care, adequate nutrition, decent housing, and full access to education. Can the economy as a whole afford it? I suspect so, but the question has not been asked, at least not properly: Can we afford a moral economy - a fair, well-run economy in which people are paid what they have earned, that is, what their work is worth to the economy as a whole? Can we at least provide a "moral minimum" - the least that lower-tier workers deserve? Anything less is simply immoral, and a market that pays less when it could do much better is not a well-run market. This is a national discussion we need to have. It is a discussion that makes clear that markets are not forces of nature; they do not just happen; they are not totally "free"; they are constructed and run, and the question we must ask is how they should be run.

Progressive, Liberal and Proud...

2006-08-03T10:24:00.000-06:00

It is high time that Progressives and Liberals stood up and reclaimed the moral high ground which the conservative movement has wrongfully usurped. Liberalism is founded on compassion, empathy, and true concern for yourself, those around you and your environment. Yet we have allowed the conservative movement to brand liberal as an insult, as if being a good human being should be seen as some sort of problem. If you, as we, believe in the most basic of religious teachings, that a good, moral person is one who seeks to help without harming, then stand up and declare it with us...I AM PROGRESSIVE AND I AM DAMN PROUD OF IT.

We know it is our moral system that is based upon nurturing and caring for other human beings and the environment we rely on for life. It is our moral system that develops people of strong character that seek not only to better themselves and their own situation, but to better those around them.

It is our moral system that is grounded in the ideals which created this nation. We understand that the first European settlers in this country survived through a strong sense of community and lifting up those that are struggling. We understand that it is our obligation to help those that have difficulty helping themselves, we recognize the absurdity of a moral system that built around the notion that if you are not fabulously wealthy it is because you are lazy and unworthy. We recognize that the basic premise of the American economic dream is that if you work hard you will get ahead, and if that is not possible, you should at least be guaranteed adequate food, shelter, medicine, education and dignity necessary to pursue happiness. We understand that it is not enough to talk about individuals repaying their debt to society without acknowledging the debt that society owes to individuals.

We believe that America, at its core, is a system striving towards equality of opportunity, and that, although it has seriously erred in the past in fulfilling that promise, the course of history and the American people have worked to progress towards that goal, but that a false belief in American infallability hinders efforts towards further progress. Our moral belief system is based in hope, on the understanding that people respond best to nurturing, education and opportunity rather than the threat of severe punishment. Our morals are those that led to end of slavery, the end of child labor, the end of disgusting working conditions, and the rise of equal rights for women and minorities. Our beliefs are those that recognize the right of all peoples to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Do not let them call you un-American. You are, in fact, the very embodiment of the ideals that are America. So stand up and proudly declare, I am a Progressive, I am a Liberal, it is morally right, and I am damn proud.

Please pass the message on.

The Truth About Taxes...

2006-08-02T10:21:00.000-06:00

To many people, taxes are seen as "penalties" to be avoided at all costs. This is a misguided view of what it is that taxes accomplish for society. When one examines just what it is that taxes have done for this country, it is easy to understand that a progressive tax scheme is the only fair approach, and that tax cuts are really just another term for benefit cuts.

Tax money built this country and it's infrastructure. Tax money built the roads in your town and the interstate highways that connect them. Tax money helped to build the airports you fly in and out of. Taxes built the communications infrastructure utilized by every person and corporation in this country. Taxes built the internet infrastructure that helped bring about prosperity in the technology sector. Taxes pay for the court system in this country, a court system with the vast majority of cases dealing with corporate law and the legal framework necessary for a capitalist economy to run. Taxes pay for the protection of the people and their property, from traffic signs and beat cops to billion dollar planes. Without taxes, the United States would not be possible.

As you can see, everyone benefits from taxes. Taxes are part of what we pay for the benefits derived from living in a society. Unfortunately, those benefits are not equally accrued by all. Rather, some become much more prosperous compliments of the infrastructure and system provided by taxpayer money. It is only fair then, that those accruing a greater benefit from the system also pay more for that benefit. It can be likened to seating arrangements at events. The benefit of sitting in the best seats is much greater than the benefit of sitting behind a pillar, thus, patrons pay more for tickets to the best seats than they do for those in the back with an obstructed view. We accept this as fair. This is why a progressive tax scheme is the only fair way to approach taxation.

When people speak of tax cuts, they really speak of benefit cuts, because that is the inevitable result. For instance, returning to our theater analogy, if all tickets are the same price one of two things must happen: (1) the theater cannot maintain itself at peak levels due to the lost revenues; or (2) the single ticket price must be expensive to make up for the lost revenues, thereby forcing those behind the pillar to pay more for the same benefit. We would not accept this as fair. Equal payment is only fair if the benefit is also equal.

The same happens in society, cutting the payments of those receiving the greatest benefits leads to a loss across the board. It also allows those that benefit the most from all that tax dollars provide through increased prosperity and security made possible by the tax-built infrastructure to escape paying a fair share of the upkeep of that infrastructure. In the long-term, that infrastructure will then collapse, which will result in those that rely on it for their benefits to collapse. Without tax dollars to support all that makes America possible, everyone loses.

Funding Elementary and Secondary Education...

2006-08-01T10:20:00.000-06:00

"When I was a freshman in high school, I discovered a deep love of history and a desire to share that with others through teaching. In hindsight, I am able to recognize that my World History teacher that year reached me in a way that few others had. At the time I did not realize how lucky I was to be in her class. She was able to find ways to make world history engaging for all the students, especially those that often found little or no reason to find any use in their own education. She was no longer teaching when I graduated from high school." - P. Linnenburger, New Whig Chairman.

The exodus of the best teachers is a frightening problem that needs to be addressed, and needs to be addressed now. The stresses on those responsible for educating our youth have multiplied and magnified over the years as close-knit communities and involved parents fade away. (When one is struggling to earn an income suitable for feeding, clothing and sheltering a family, it is near impossible to be active in the community, or even in the home). As our educational system falters, the easiest problem to address is a lack of qualified and dedicated teachers. We demand our teachers be educators, mentors, parents, police, friends, coaches, and pillars of our community. Yet, other than in the richest of districts, they are paid an income making it near impossible to raise a family on. This is lunacy. Dedicating one's life to educating future generations is one of the most noble tasks an individual can undertake. They should be compensated accordingly.

This is especially trouble in the areas of math and science, two crucial subjects when it comes to innovation and ingenuity at the heart of American economic growth. Can we blame the teacher who decides the long hours, low pay, constant fighting, and dealing with inept management is no longer worth it when the private sector offers an immediate fivefold or higher increase in wages? Congress gives themselves an extra $3,000 yearly, yet teachers fail to receive a raise to cover the cost of inflation. This is unacceptable.

The system of funding education in this country is seriously flawed. The localized scheme results in embarrassing inequalities that could easily be addressed by intelligent oversight and a proper distribution of resources to those that need it the most. Affluent neighborhoods inevitably have the highest property tax revenues, and thus the most available funds for their schools. Thus, the children of affluent parents, the same parents who have the time and resources to be involved in the community and in the lives of their children thereby alleviating the need for schools to play such a large role in the child's development, are the only ones to receive a school from an institution properly equipped to play that large role, even if it is unnecessary.

Go to the other corner of town and you will find children of parents working two full-time jobs to simply put food on the table and a roof over their heads. You will find classrooms that are severely overcrowded due to the lack of funds to hire the necessary number of teachers. You will find less qualified teachers with more responsibility because the pay is not suitable for the best and the brightest, even though they are needed there the most. You will find students without supplies, outdated books in insufficient numbers, and dilapidated buildings. Worst of all, you will find a population of students with dwindling hope, stuck in a cycle of poverty. We refuse to accept that these children are not entitled to all the benefits that I received simply because they were not born into an affluent family. In fact, we believe the head start that middle class birth provides over them provides a greater justification for any inequality of resources to favor those that could gain the largest benefit from it, the children of poverty we too often hide on the other side of the tracks.

We propose not just equal funding of education, but adequate funding of education given the situation within which a particular community finds itself. A distribution of resources in education that realizes the best use of those resources necessarily includes a greater share of them going to those that need them the most, rather than those that never once doubted they would attend college. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. So why is it that in education we strengthen the strongest links, and do nothing to strengthen those already straining to hold together?

This is exactly why school vouchers are a misguided approach to helping students in struggling schools. They will lead to yet another drain of much needed resources from the schools that need it the most. Furthermore, the children that would end up leaving these schools will be those with parents that have the time and resources to devote to shuttling their children across town to a different school. These will inevitably be the best students within that school. Thus, not only will there be a drain on resources, but the school will be drained of it's best students, and the remainder of the students will be deprived of the vast benefits accrued through interaction between higher level and lower level students, benefits which have been shown to go both ways, uplifting the educational experience and value of both student groups. We fail to see the logic in saving a struggling school by destroying it.

Thus, our proposal involves a system put into place to ensure resources are distributed in such a way as to create what our founding fathers dreamed of, a well-educated and informed populous, not just a well-educated and informed elite. Each state will be required to collect an amount of funds for educating it's children. These funds need not necessarily be collected through property taxes, thereby alleviating the need for a state like Nevada to implement one. Furthermore, in a state like New Mexico, the federal government will still be required to provide funding based on the amount of federal land within the state as they are now.

From there, a committee which will include members of each district will determine which schools have the greatest need for resources, given the opportunities outside of school for children in the community, the lack or abundance of qualified teaching at that school, the economic circumstances of the area that feeds into that school, etc. With this determination, the funds, collected and supplemented by the federal government, will be distributed to ensure that each school at least meets a base level, and from there, those that are struggling are provided with the resources to turn things around rather than depriving them further. Teacher salaries can be boosted in areas desperately needing the best teachers. Crumbling schools can be provided with the means to provide a welcoming place for children to congregate. After school programs can be financed in those areas where they community is unable to offer them and where it is especially crucial to give students an alternative to the street. Schools filled with children who's families cannot afford textbooks and to supplement those text books with other tools will be provided with the means to purchase those books. Some will tell me such a system of equality of opportunity is an impossibility. If that is the case, we challenge this nation to embrace the impossible and give each and every one of our children the hope of a better future.

Capital punishment is draconian, un-American, and counterproductive...

2006-07-30T10:19:00.000-06:00

The following is a message from New Whig Chairman, Paul Linnenburger.

It is extremely difficult for someone without personal experience with the criminal justice system, especially death penalty cases, to fully understand the circumstances. I used to be an advocate of capital punishment...until I informed myself and had to deal with the system. While I could go on for days about the idiocy of capital punishment, I will try to be somewhat brief.

When people claim that life imprisonment is less expensive than the death penalty they are ignoring the cost of trial to even get to the point of the years and years of appeals (that your tax dollars end up paying for since capital punishment is sought much more often against the poor, not to mention minorities...and I will not debate that with you, it is a fact that is easily verified by Department of Justice statistics. So look it up and save your breath). For instance, the federal system actually requires three trials to even get to the point where a sentence of death may be imposed. The first is a hearing system put in place before the criminal trial which is used to determine whether a particular defendant will be eligible for the death penalty. For this hearing the government must do extensive investigation, and the defense must do extensive investigation (and remember, the defense must be provided to indigent defendants, which means your tax dollars are being used...if you have no humanity, you most likely have greed and do not like your money wasted). This takes months and a lot of manpower hours that could be used by law enforcement to solve otherwise unsolved crimes. That is right, even at this early stage, capital punishment means less time and money devoted to solving other crimes, thereby leaving more dangerous criminals out on the streets. Then, if the Department of Justice decides the US Attorney for a particular district is authorized to seek the death penalty a criminal trial is the next step. Criminal trials of capital crimes are intense and extremely expensive. They constitutionally require qualified attorneys (two for each defendant in federal cases), which costs the government even more money (for instance, here in New Mexico, there are only a handful of capital qualified defense attorneys...the government has to pay them to represent indigent defendants at a premium according to the requirements of the Constitution and the Criminal Justice Act, along with investigators, mitigation specialists, etc.). Furthermore, they take much more time in the courtroom, and for every day a case is in court, the government loses thousands and thousands of dollars and hours of manpower (federal Marshals must be present in the courtroom, taking them off the streets, not to mention all the investigators who will be witnesses that are then pulled from their jobs). Then, if a guilty verdict is reached, after already having spent a few million tax payer dollars, a third trial occurs, the sentencing trial. The sentencing phase requires hundreds of hours of preparation and investigation on both sides, the defense looking for mitigatory factors, the government looking for aggravating factors. This results in another big bill to taxpayers. Finally, there just might be a sentence of death, which will automatically require years of appeal in accordance with due process guarantees of the Constitution, which means even more money and manpower down the drain. When you focus on the cost of capital punishment only from sentencing to carrying out that sentence, you miss millions of dollars that otherwise would not be spent.

The Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. Whether a punishment falls within this category is based upon evolving standards of decency. Standards of decency have most definitely evolved since the time of this Nations founding, thereby discounting any argument that capital punishment was plentiful at the time the Constitution was signed. No other industrialized democracy in the world utilizes this draconian punishment. Its use does, however, give us a bond to countries like Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan under the Taliban, Iraq under Saddam. Not exactly the best company for a country that claims it is the home of freedom and justice.

Capital punishment's only value as a deterrent to further crime is through specific deterrence. This means that the particular individual will not commit further crime. However, this is accomplished by life imprisonment without parole, without the expense of a capital trial and the other problems associated with capital punishment. Any argument that a convicted person sentenced to life without parole still has the opportunity to escape and commit further crime is ludicrous. With a sentence as serious as that, they will be placed in prisons that do not afford for such opportunity, and any escape will be an insanely rare exception that proves the rule. Any argument that escape is somehow a realistic possibility for prisoners sentenced to LWOP is laughable, and I find tends to come from people that have never had experience with prisons in this country.

Since capital punishment made a comeback in this country, violent crime has risen. It is obvious that there is no general deterrent value to capital punishment. Expanding the use of capital punishment may have the opposite effect, creating an environment where criminals no longer have anything left to lose, thereby increasing their dangerousness.

The jury system is not perfect. Awhile ago I did two blogs on men executed in Texas on questionable evidence. Furthermore, a criminal trial has the deck severely stacked against a defendant from the outset, and if you have never been through the process, this is something that is extremely difficult to understand. Trust me on that. This combination is too dangerous to accept the outcome. I tend to believe that it is better to let 10 guilty men go free (or in this case, not so much go free as sit in prison for the remainder of their natural lives without hope of parole) then to sentence one innocent man to death.

Also, the process of capital trials and the subsequent appeals has a devastating psychological affect on those involved. Court personnel have noted the anguish they suffer as a result of these cases. I recently heard the Chief Justice of the Florida Supreme Court speak of the mental problems he has had associated with being informed that "the order of the court has been carried out" upon the death of an inmate. Even jurors have noted the anguish they go through knowing they sent someone to their death. Perhaps most poignantly, the process is drawn out and compartmentalized in such a way that it actually prohibits victims from gaining closure. They must endure three trials, a process that will likely take years. After that, they must then endure years of appeal, and the possibility of yet another three-phase trial. The process keeps these wounds open for years and years. It is a system where everybody loses, and it is an embarrassment to our society.

More on immigration...

2006-07-28T10:18:00.000-06:00

While advancing the policies outlined in previous blogs and below, it is important that business are provided with the means to realistically decipher whether or not their workers are legally in the United States. Currently our government seeks to hold employers responsible for hiring illegal workers. Yet when these same employers ask the government for assistance in determining the status of their workers, they are stonewalled. If we are serious about retaining jobs for American workers, it is lunacy to deprive businesses of the means with which to accomplish this.

It is vital that we provide a quicker and easier path to citizenship for people that are established in this country. No good can come out tearing families apart and forcing good, otherwise law-abiding, people into prison and back across the border. Some of the major talking points of those proclaiming the evils of illegal immigration is that these people do not pay taxes and they work jobs for lower pay, pricing Americans out of the labor market. If we fast track those that are established here already into citizenship they will then begin paying taxes on the income earned (which is more than can be said for numerous large corporations) and force companies to pay them the legal minimum wage, thereby alleviating these concerns.

We stand at a crossroads when it comes to those people that have come here through illegal channels in order to establish a better life for themselves and their families. We can either turn them into felons, necessitating a huge expenditure of money to round them up and house them in already overcrowded federal prisons bloated with some 2,000,000 nonviolent offenders, and forcing them further into the shadows of society, a placement that only leads to further problems for society as a whole. Such an approach is baffling when one realizes that immigrants, even those here illegally, are less likely to commit violent crime that American citizens. Or, we can accept that they can be productive members of society, that these families and communities are a positive influence on our culture, and that they become unabashedly American by the second or third generation. We can force them into becoming a drain on society as a prisoner, or we can place them in a position to contribute fully to society. We reject the first option and choose the later. We choose to accept the humanity of my neighbor that has risked everything for the hope that accompanies a promise of freedom and opportunity.

It is this choice that guides our belief that it would be horribly counterproductive to deny education and medicine to immigrants, regardless their status. Some espouse the need for individual responsibility, yet propose to hold children accountable for the actions of their parents. They decry the lack of desire of immigrants to "assimilate" and become productive members of society, and then attempt to deny them the means with which to accomplish these goals. If we truly want immigrant populations to become a strength of this country, we must provide them with the tools to better their position. Not only will this create a better situation for those wishing to gain a foothold in America, but it will lead to a betterment of the whole of our society in the long-term and create strong bonds between newcomers and their new home.

The idea of building a fence on the border is a gross perversion of the ideals with which this nation was founded. One cannot help but remember a time when a wall was erected to prevent people from escaping to freedom, prosperity and a better life. As children we watched as the German people danced on the remains of that wall. I never imagined members of the United States Congress would propose the turning back the clock and utilizing tactics of oppression which it struggled so long to topple. This country should be embracing freedom seeking peoples of the world, not erect concrete and barbed wire in their path.

Beginning to deal with immigration...

2006-07-25T10:17:00.000-06:00

Even including illegal immigration, immigration rates are a fraction of what they were a century ago, a time when the influx of immigrants, all of whom would be considered "illegal" under today's laws, spurred the rise of American economic power. At the time it was believed that the growing American population of Irish, German and Italian peoples would destroy the fabric of our society. Now, those boogeymen have proved not to be awaiting in the our nation's closet, our leaders have turned to Mexicans as a scape goat for their failed policies.

We question why the debate is centered solely on the southern border. The northern border is longer and easier to cross. Those with family on either side travel relatively painlessly between the two countries. Traffic across the Canadian border by foreign terrorists would not raise much alarm given the subsantial immigrant population in Canada. Yet our leaders avert our eyes to the southern border and point to the false boogeyman of the Mexican infiltration.

It may suprise many to learn that illegal immigrants in this country are actually far less likely to commit violent crime than American citizens. They also largely become "American" by the second and third generation. They live in close-knit communities and have strong extended family networks. All in all, they are putting together the type of communities and families that America should celebrate.

We ask why we feel it is necessary to severely limit immigration when immigration is part of what makes this nation and furthers the economic growth and well-being of the United States. As long as this country remains the land of opportunity, as long as we proclaim ourselves the land of the free, people will continue to flock here. Why then, do we not embrace these self-proclaimed monikers and truly deliver freedom and opportunity to our neighbors? It is time to live up the words engraved on the tablet held by the Statue of Liberty..."Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door." It is this dream of an America, a nation that opens it's doors of opportunity to the world and shares the dream of freedom and prosperity with all that seek it, that drives my views on immigration.

Thus, our perspective on immigration issues is shaped by a realization that lifting up our neighbor will benefit ourselves in the long term. Accordingly, we point to the example of post-World War II Europe and Japan and the policy commonly referred to as the Marshall Plan. The economies of these countries were in tatters after years of war, and this posed a problem for the growing American economy. This country spent billions rebuilding the economies of war torn countries. The result was a growing market for American manufacturers and a number of trading partners which served to promote prosperity in each of the nations. By sharing it's own prosperity, America ensured continued prosperity for years to come.

By contrast, agreements such as NAFTA are destroying the viability of the Mexican economy while increasingly sending capital abroad with not much to show for it here. The result is a people desperate, a people willing to risk everything to cross the border for the hope of a better life for their children and themselves. Until the Mexican economy is prosperous in it's own right, these people will continue to cross our borders. Thus, if one's concern is truly to end the migration of peoples north, a strengthening of the Mexican economy must be the first priority.

Not only will aid to Mexico in a Marshall Plan type program assist in curbing illegal immigration, it will provide an opportunity for economic growth here in the United States. Just as the rebuilding of Europe and Japan led to trading partners and markets for American products that can afford to pay for them. This can be part of a program to rebuild the infrastructure of American manufacturing, the key to economic power in an industrialized world and an area where this nation is in serious relative decline. Furthermore, a viable trading partner to the south carries with it the possibility to create a boon for the border states, including New Mexico.

A stronger friend to the south economically tied in a prosperous way with the United States will, in the long-term, increase the security of this nation, much the same way stronger friends in Western Europe and Japan assisted in previous years.

An intelligent approach to comprehensive immigration policies has the possibility to create a safer, more prosperous America.

The Essence of New Whig...

2006-07-20T10:16:00.000-06:00

Politics in this country have become removed from reality. The folks in Washington are so far removed from the rest of us that they have completely lost touch with America. Look around, the most successful politicians are those that can bring in the most dollars. Unfortunately, to raise barrels of money politicians then begin to vote according to the wishes of those that pay for their campaigns. The vast majority of American's cannot afford to give "meaningful" monetary contributions to political campaigns and, as a result, they are turned away by the political machine, even when they reach out unselfishly. This was the final straw, the last push throwing us into the coliseum, the launching of a new movement.

We have this vision...a vision of a nation where elections are decided on ideas rather than money, catchy phrases, and straight party line votes. A nation where the people relish their freedom to vote and their freedom to choose because that choice is there. A nation where we reject the notion of voting for the lesser evil, because it only takes us farther from the common good. A nation where leaders are respected for looking past the next quarter or even the next election. A nation with a government that serves the people rather than oversees them.

Hence our vision of a campaign without connection to a party or to monied interests. A campaign based on the lost realization that if you avoid the politics of fear and hatred, that if you give them ideas, if you give them a vision of hope, if you give them a reason, the American people will respond and the greatness of this nation will shine.

Thus, we will share with you our ideas. Some are polished, some are rough, some are practical, some are idealistic, none of them are an attempt to pander. There may even be times when our vision shifts, when our ideas are updated, or when new ideas are brought to our attention. This is called "flip-flopping" by some, but those of us who remain connected to the world outside Washington know it to be growth. While you peruse our thoughts, our suggestions, our solutions, we ask that you share with us your own thoughts, your own suggestions, your own solutions.

Spread the word, make some waves, help us in awaking the sleeping giant that is the American electorate.

What Might Have Been...

2006-07-16T10:15:00.000-06:00

Almost four decades ago Robert F. Kennedy was assasinated. He may have been America's last chance to fight off the forces of greed, corruption and imperialism which now hold this country down and keep it from reaching it's potential for greatness. RFK should be a model for us all...when he started his career in law and politics he participated in such atrocities as the House Unamerican Activities Committee and prosecuted labor leaders. However he also took on civil rights cases, and after his brother was assasinated, a new RFK emerged, one which united the country and showed the potential for a populist movement to reclaim American greatness. We can only imagine how the world may be a better place had RFK lived to change the face of American politics before it was too late. Here is a brief collection of a few of my personal favorite RFK-isms.

"Too much, and for too long we seem to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product is now over $800 billion a year [in 1968]. But that gross national product, if we judge the United States of America by that, counts air pollution, and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors, and the jails for people who break them. It counts the destruction of redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and it counts nuclear warheads, and Witman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.

Yet the gross national pruduct does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our passion nor our devotion to our country.

It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America...except why we are proud that we are Americans."

And now our children are without proper medical care, with schools that are failing them and pollution that is slowly killing them. It seems every level of government is poisoned with corruption, and our public debate has been stifled by those in power and by the monied interests they represent. The last forty years could have made America great, instead they have made her a global bully that ignores the needs of even it's own citizens.

"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were, and ask why not."

This is the problem with politics today, neither side is willing to strive to achieve what this country is capable of achieving. Instead they are content with blaming the state of affairs on the other. We do not get solutions, or even valid attempts at them, we get the same stale, failed propositions under a different name. We refuse to accept that there are those in this country that go to bed hungry, that there are children world wide that know the pain of hunger so that the economic engine of globalization can continue to roll along, that the human race is incapable of dealing with itself without resorting to bloodletting, that we can build a weapon that can instantly anhiliate millions but are unable to lift the impoverished from their dreary lives, that criminal sanctions are the solution to all our problems, that we can spend trillions on death and destruction yet not find a way to power our economy with a resource that would not require the use of our military forces in areas of the world rich in hydrocarbons, that there is anyone in this country that is denied a quality education simply because they cannot afford the tuition, that people must pick themselves up out of poverty without the community providing the means with which to accomplish it, that for so many of our poor the way out is either turning to crime or turning to the military. How can we not do better than this?

"On this generation of Americans falls the burden of proving to the world that we really mean it when we say all men are created free and are equal before the law. All of us might wish at times that we lived in a more tranquil world, but we don't. And if our times are difficult and perplexing, so are they challenging and filled with opportunity."

America had an opportunity to shape the world in a positive way following the tragedy of September 11th. America could have lived up to it's ideals by taking the moral high ground and reevaluating it's role in promoting un-American actions abroad. Instead, we chose to invade two countries, subjecting their people to further death and destruction. It may be too late to turn the tide, but we must act as though it is not. If we lead the world will follow, whether it be into further armed conflict or serious discussion.

"Democracy is no easy form of government. Few nations have been able to sustain it. For it requires that we take the chances of freedom; that the liberating play of reason be brought to bear on events filled with passion; that dissent be allowed to make its appeal for acceptance; that menchance error in their search for the truth."

Democracy is not easy, and as a nation we have become complacent in allowing it to erode. While Democrats and Republicans argue over which side is more capable of destroying the fabric of this country, the majority of citizens are so appalled they refuse to exercise their most basic and important right. We can no longer allow ourselves to play the game that politicians wish us to play, to continue choosing the lesser of two evils because we are afraid of what might happen otherwise. There is no other democratic country in the world where third parties have such a difficult time even getting to the ballot. This is unacceptable, but for it to change, we must retake control of our government as a people. No, democracy is not easy, but it is the very least of what we owe to those that came before us, those that perished to protect it, those that perished trying to obtain it, and those that longingly look to the United States for it.

"The sharpest criticism often goes hand in hand with the deepest idealism and love of country."

Do not let anyone call you un-American because you dream of an America that lives up to your hopes; that lifts her citizens out of poverty, crime and addiction, that works to do the same for peoples around the world; that acknowledges when it has been wrong, and works to correct those wrongs; that uses the power of liberty to compel change rather than the sword. We grew up with a deep love for my country, and while we know my country is not the great, benevolent actor we were taught as children, we believe it can be.

New Whig Founder Running for Congress...

2006-07-14T10:12:00.000-06:00

The following is a message from New Whig Founder and Chairman, Paul Linnenburger.

I, for one, am no longer willing to sit idly back and watch the Republicans and the Democrats argue with each other over which is the better path to American and world decline...I refuse to vote for either of these candidates just because they are not as bad as the other...and everyone out there should do the same. For that...I offer myself, Paul Linnenburger...unedited...to you...here is the first of a series in my effort to win your confidence.

This is what I can promise you...

I am not now, nor will I ever be, beholden to any monied interests. My staff has been directed to turn down any attempt at monetary campaign contributions. I find it disgusting that the State of New Mexico spends taxpayer money to send a lobbyist to the halls of the United States Capital. That's right, our current representatives are so inept, that we must pay someone else to roam the halls of Congress and look out for New Mexico.

I find it entirely unacceptable that each time the government is looking to cut back on military bases within the United States itself New Mexicans begin to worry that their bases will be taken, and the economy of this state will suffer. Yet the government has no problem building dozens of permanent military bases in and around the Middle East. The beneficiaries become, not the American people, not the good people of New Mexico, but a handful of contractors with ties to even fewer companies that happen to have people like the President's father on the board of directors. If we are going to spend a ridiculously high percentage of our GDP on "defense"...I propose it actually benefit the American people number one, and actually be defensive number two. Bring some of these bases home.

While the folks in Washington have been using your tax dollars for years to find a way to secure the hydrocarbon resources of the world to support our energy habits, the United States has fallen behind the leaders in researching and developing alternative energy sources. How many trillion does this country currently spend on military ventures to protect our energy interests abroad? A fraction of that money could be spent to fund research and development of alternative energy sources so that this country may be ready for the day when oil becomes too expensive to prop up our economy. A whole lot of this research could and should be done right here at the Sandia Labs, an invaluable resource that is being improperly used by the folks in power now. We built an atomic bomb in the blink of an eye...we put a man on the moon...we can figure out a way to power our lives in a more efficient manner. In fact, our livelihood will eventually depend on it. Capitalism requires energy to power growth, our current energy sources are finite and depleting quickly. If we can get ahead of the curve, not only will it mean growth for the economy in the future, but it will mean we are no longer required to send hundreds of thousands of our troops to hydrocarbon rich regions of the world.

Along those same lines, the State of New Mexico should be leading the country in alternative energy to begin with. The amount of sun and wind this state sees provide an ideal testing ground for the benefits of solar and wind power. Tax incentives to develop these technologies further would provide New Mexico the opportunity to lead the world into the next age, which would, in turn, provide revenues to rival those of the oil and gas lands of the southeastern portion of the state.

Three of the most profitable businesses in this country are currently the illicit drug trade, industry connected to arming the world's armies (not just our own), and the industries connected to developing prisons. Thus, many of the biggest money makers in this country are directly connected to destroying lives or ending them. What does this say about the priorities of the people in Washington? Since the government began the "War on Drugs" illegal drugs have become easier to obtain and of better quality than ever before. Yet the solution seems to be to throw more money at solving crime, which leads to a booming prison industry that includes millions of Americans placed behind bars. If the unemployment numbers in this country were to include those in prison, the rate would climb more than a few percentage points. This is an entirely unproductive way to mobilize society, especially considering there are currently somewhere in the range of 2,000,000 people incarcerated for nonviolent offenses. All of the money spent on fighting drugs and fighting the world is highly unproductive for the overall economy. It is a large part of the reason the United States is teetering on the edge, and it can no longer be condoned.

I would never even dream of voting for a bill that hasn't even been printed for my viewing pleasure yet just because the country is scared and the title is PATRIOT. Such an abrogation of the sacred duty of a representative is repulsive.

A fair tax code, one in which those that can afford to pay more at least pay an equal percentage of their disposable income, should be re-implemented. Stratification of wealth is a serious problem in this country and one which has historically signalled an economy on it's decline. While the stock market continued to climb, your leaders told you life was better, yet you found it harder and harder to make ends meet. All of this while they and their friends fleeced the American taxpayer. Take just a small portion of that back, and our struggling schools just may be supported financially to turn around.

It is idiocy to remove funding from schools that are "failing." The logic of removing needed help from those that require it the most escapes me. No Child Left Behind, while it was at least an effort, was a horrible mistake. It was modeled after the program George Bush set up in Texas. While the test scores improved in Texas, as those students made it to colleges, they were discovering they never learned critical thinking skills and were way behind their classmates from "lesser" schools. Giving our children the ability to take a specific test is not giving them opportunity, it is robbing them of it.

Immigration is at a fraction of the rate it was at this point in the 20th Century. Yet the folks in Washington and Patsy Madrid and Bill Richardson want you to think Mexican workers coming over the border to work hard and establish families that are close-knit, largely church-going, and unequivocally American by the second or third generation, will be the end of the American dream. This is a lie that is perpetuating a racist view of an important ethnic group in this area.

The tribes and pueblos of New Mexico have been cheated by the Federal Government long enough. The fact that these peoples are forced to spend money on lobbyists is disgusting, it is a job our representatives should be doing. The established rules stifle economic growth in Indian Country, leaving them without the opportunity to decide whether or not they are interested in such growth. While the Federal Government claims to be stewards of the Indian, I am at a loss to remember one instance in which it acted as such.

I do not confuse being "soft" on crime with an intelligent approach to combating crime. I refuse to accept wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on a single criminal case seeking to kill someone who killed someone to show that killing someone is wrong. I refuse to accept that 2,000,000 nonviolent offenders could not be productive members of society. I refuse to accept that the best and cheapest way to deal with an addict is to throw them in prison rather than help them get off drugs.

I have no party affiliation, I have no affiliation but to the people who trudge to work every day in order to provide for their families. I want to hear from you...what are your concerns?

We have allowed the major parties to play with us long enough, it is time for the true citizens to stand up and take back their government...to once again ensure that it is "of the people, by the people, and for the people."

If you want to learn more about where I stand on any given issue, just ask.