COMMENTS

- - 2012

October 23, 2012: A New American Imperative?

The third presidential debate of 2012 is now history. We have seen one repeatedly hit the button labeled on-the-job experience and the other offer multiple restatements of an agenda comprising vague, homespun tautologies. As much as I wish the sitting President had accomplished more - he could have fabricated at least a veneer of bipartisan support - I cannot understand the nation’s patience with his opponent’s continual protestations, ala the worst of the 1920's excessive promotions, of a blank space program, the beneficial fiscal details of which will be revealed shortly, only after election.

In any event, all that is nuance and spin, wealth making opportunities for PR firms, advert clogged blogs and the network talking heads. My more deeply felt concern, as these personal confrontations come to a close, is something else entirely.

I am distressed by the lack of reaction to Candidate Romney’s outrageous, although in this instance not clandestine, claim, in the second of the debates, that “We are all children of the same God.” The “same” God, he instructs us. ?!?

Yes, personal religious affiliation should not be a concern in this or any other American political contest. One day, I promise you, it will be overtly, but not yet. Is this, an as yet unchallenged characterization by the Governor, the first (another?) step toward our country’s systematic theocratization?

Candidate Romney’s religious faith is not an issue here. His claim of exclusivity is. Are there no Catholics, Jews, Episcopalians, Protestants, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Atheists, Jains, Daoists, Secularists, Confuscians - the list is too long - who are upset at his theistic singularity, the denial of an alternative Higher Power? Is deism to be disallowed? Think how distressing it was to learn of the mutilation and destruction of ancient religious relics, as well as their hosts, by muslim fundamentalist extremists, who allow worship of no other than the Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him, as they always say) and the He from Whom he came.

“Under God...” is a staple of our democracy, true. Yet, this phrase allows, in most of these United States, at least, a choice as to which God that shall be. American religious liberty allows that we endow He/She/It with those characteristics of our choosing. Romney’s frank presumption of exclusivity obviates this, aligns him with those who presume to define, in their own personal and self-serving terms, what must be observed in ours.

His faith’s surreptitious baptisms of the unwilling and the uninformed, even long dead holocaust Jews, has been, at least publically, disavowed. Romney’s recent personal imperative, however, like much of the American Religious Right’s rhetoric, would suggest a mind closed to alternative expressions of faith. It declaims an inflexible fundamentalist conformity, which is the enemy of democracy.

Why is this not discussed?

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October 15, 2012: Credit Card Fraud? Again?

Few remember when credit card (CC) interest was tax deductible. Once plastic money did become commonplace, the habit of monthly cash balances ingrained, and an inflationary and unregulated augmentation to the money supply created, the IRS exemption was rescinded.

Now, in a recent and only dimly discussed settlement among retailers and the card issuers, those retailers soon will be allowed to add a surcharge onto CC purchases. The intent, allowing retailers to recover transaction fees, while understandable, simply pushes that beneficial mercantile burden onto the consumer. Why am I not surprised? As before, the effective net result is a consumption tax, but one which benefits financial institutions exclusively.

Protesting via congress is of no avail. The large financial institutions, thanks to decades of infiltration, ARE the government. Neither can one stop being a consumer. However, one can consume less. One can forgo the excess sugar and empty calories in your financial diet. Above all, one can vow to not purchase from any retailer that ever adds such a fee. Please note, by the way: Offering price concessions for cash is just a thinly veiled instance of the same practice. Whomever allows their productivity, and how they assign it, to be co-opted by another, is stepping back into serfdom. We are almost halfway there already. Why willingly go further?