8-28-08: I can't believe I predicted the WHOLE thing

I can't believe this.

After almost a YEAR with ABSOLUTELY NO readers (or comments) at all!

I finally get a reader.

But wahat a reader!

I was listening to Barack Obama's Acceptance speech earlier (about 10:30 Eastern time)

What did I hear?

Every single thing I believe in and have posted to this blog

Barack Obama Just stole (just kidding) from me..

Maybe I should give him my resume and tell him I want a job.

yeah right.




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OK, you wanted a Political discussion: Here goes.

The background I believe that:
* We're HEADING into a DEPRESSION.
* It's going to be as BAD as the last one.
* According to Robert Reich (former Sec'y of Labor under Clinton): The only number that he EVER saw, defining the
depression was that the unemployment rate hovered around 25%.
* We need a new deal.
* After 58 years of NO Health Care Reform (since 1950!) it will FINALLY be coming soon...
* We've managed to WASTE a FULL generation (from Zero to thirty) with decaying social, educational, and interpersonal skills.
* Our nation is no longer DOING (producing) anything.
SO, from these few premises, I have extrapolated a great deal of items to FIX our society...

But....
We need to make sure that a number of issues are resolved ALL at once.
If we don't do them ALL at once, its like juggling three RUNNING chain saws, but dropping one!

Here's what I came up with:

We need to do the FOLLOWING to FIX our Society:
* Create A Living Wage
* Create a National Single payer Healthcare
* Create a National 3-4 year draft (or alternate service)
* Create a Federally paid Day Care starting at six months
* Implement Tax Reform on the ULTRA Rich
* Lobbying (Political Reform)
* Education
* Infrastructure (road /bridge/Systems repairs)
* Lack of Training/futures
* Truth and Reconcilliation Commission
* A new "Manhattan" project, focusing on Energy INDEPENDENCE

See my other blog: http://sos-newdeal.blogspot.com for more details.

Commentary: Oil at $131/barrel

OIL is now $131.00 per barrel. I did say here that I expected it to be$100/per barrel last year.


Well. What do the Stupid Arsed Republicians in the CONGRESS say????

DRILL in Alaska for MORE OIL....

ARGUH....

Look what happened.

After 35 years of NOT raising the Fuel economy standards (Corporate Average Fuel Economy--CAFE) standards Congress raised them this year, and Ford announced last month that within five years ALL of it's new cars will have a GREAT new automatic transmission that gets better FUEL economy.

What a bunch of idiots... They STILL don't get it.

=================================
We're HEADING into a DEPRESSION.

We need a new deal.

We need to make sure that a number of issues are resolved ALL at once.
If we don't do them ALL at once, its like juggling three RUNNING chain saws, but dropping one!

We need to FIX:
* A Living Wage
* National Single payer Healthcare
* National 3-4 year draft (or alternate service)
* Federally paid Day Care starting at six months
* Tax Reform
* Lobbying (Political Reform)
* Education
* Infrastructure
* Lack of Training/futures


See my other blog: http://sos-newdeal.blogspot.com for more details on rebuilding society.

New posts: New topic

I will be cross-posting items from my new blog here.

My new blog is limited to one topic, re-creating a NEW deal (just like FDR did 76 years ago!)

The problem is that everything in life (and in doing this project) is like juggling six working chain saws at once. It's all in the balancing, so none of them fall DOWN!

The areas that need to be repaired in our society are:

1. Poverty
2. Education
3. Health Care,
4. Youth Training
5. Rebuilding our infrastructure
6. Reforming our political system.
7. Undoing the privatization of the military complex.
   

If we can get laws enacted ALL at once to address these, we WILL have a much better society.

Happy reading, and I will be opening a discussion board soon about the SOS-Newdeal...

Robert Moses -- The power broker and destroyer of New York

This is essentially a placeholder. Please note that you will need to understand the following to fully understand this post:

1. I grew up in Manhattan
2. I first read, "The Power Broker" when it was first published, in the mid-70's.
3. There is a lot of discussion in this post about physical spots in NY.
   

This post will discuss Robert Moses, and the pulitzer Prize winning book, "The Power Broker" by Robert Caro. (click HERE to buy at amazon now!)

Essentially, Caro's book is a very thorough biography and analysis of his impact on New York, and our country.

I feel that several key items regarding Moses's foibles caused a great deal of shame and problems for New York City, that remain to this day such as:

• Mr. Moses was a racist.
• Mr. Moses was an upper class slob.
• Mr. Moses was class conscious
  

These three factors totally influenced how and where our City developed in his reign of terror and power in our city.

Racist
Mr. Moses specifically designed ALL of his parks, parkways, beaches and even highways so that blacks, lower class "masses", and others need not partake of his designs.
Upper Class
All of Mr. Moses's works were designed for access to cars. His parks, his roads, and even his bridges were built with a car in mind, and were designed to NEVER allow public transportation.

• Bridges: All of Robert Moses' bridges were designed to be transit inaccessible. A specific requirement was that they NOT be adaptable to add RAIL lines on them.
• Parkways were designed by Robert Moses to be TOO SHORT for public buses. The overpasses over the highway were built too low to accommodate busses.
• The Van Wyck Expressway in Queens was built (deliberately) without a center median lane, because Robert Moses allegedly said, there will never be a rail line that could run down the median to the airport.

Imagine.... if...

1. All of the Robert Moses Highways could accommodate buses.
   
1. All people (even the poor) could have gotten into Jones Beach.
2. All of the Robert Moses roads had space (or included mass transit/Rail tracks)
1. Imagine a new commuter (subway, not commuter rail) transit system that went straight down the Long Island Expressway (L.I.E.).
1. If there was a new mass transit line down the L.I.E. ,imagine how industry and housing on Long Island might have been changed. Instead of a totally commuter based (read Property-over-Taxed) infrastructure, there might actually be substantial manufacturing up and down the entire island.
2. Reverse commuting might have brought thousands of under-employed and underpaid employees to the Long Island area.
3. The industry and problems of the tax base we currently have in the NYC metro area would not be as bad, with a commerical tax base.
2. Imagine a center median Rail line (such as Chicago has) that has a rail line from the airport directly to downtown Boston. If we had such a rail line going down the L.I.E., it could easily have met up and transfered into the Van Wyck Expressway line.
3. Imagine that ALL of New York's (MTA) bridges had a built-in Rail line. Imagine the freight possibilities of cheaper goods, and less trucks into the area.

Essentially, I say that because of Robert Moses myopias, New York has stagnated, and been unable to break out of the "5 boroughs" mode that was set in the early 1900's.

Had he had a true foresight, our entire community and area would have a thriving commercial tax base, and we wouldn't have as much problems with property taxes today.