River Warren

Political Column

[riverwarren]

Dr. Martin Luther King

By Brian Wojtalewicz 01-22-13 

Dr. Martin Luther King was shot dead by a coward with a high powered rifle, thinking that a bullet and the killing of a movement leader would somehow help preserve the ignorant, racist culture that he favored. He was wrong.

I’d bet that few Americans know why Dr. King was in Memphis that fateful day. He was there to support the strike of the garbage pickup workers. He devoted his life to working for justice, not simply for the eradication of evil racism. Justice included a livable wage for millions of Americans who were not getting it, and are not getting it to this day.

Dr. King had a very important quality that few leaders in this society have today, including President Obama - - courage to act for justice and truth in the face of intense public and political pressure against you. Dr. King came out publicly against the Vietnam War when that war was not nearly as unpopular as it became. He spoke against the brutal killing of millions of poor peasant farmers and their children, and the annihilation of their homes, fields and villages.

Dr. King recognized and told his fellow Americans that our immense wealth and the lives of our young people should not be directed at bringing poor, third world countries to heel, but at making our own society more fair and just, and therefore more capable of truly helping the human beings in Vietnam, Iraq, Guatemala and so many other nations that were brutally colonized for so long.

[riverwarren]

Gun Control: The Red Herring

By Brian Wojtalewicz Published 01-15-13 in the Appleton Press

Appleton, MN – So many Americans seem to be distracted by the gun debate, while the real crises that will devastate our nation and planet grow worse with inaction.

Devastating global climate change continues, with record setting heat and its widespread severe drought, floods, great storms and forest devastations. Yet our leadership is either bought or too gutless to do the right things.  Their obeisance to the corporatocracy that has established greed as the soul of this country is shameful.

Too many think that their salvation lies in having a personal arsenal, as they are steadily beaten into a peasantry.  This nation has the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any on earth, and starker inequality than at any time since the roaring 1920’s.  The family that owns Wal-mart has more wealth than the bottom 40% of Americans.  The top 1% owns 42% of all wealth, while the bottom 60% has 2.3%.  As of 2010, the top 1% pulled down 93% of all new income, while the bottom 99% shared the remaining 7%. 

The politicians that are fervent gun-rights champions are usually the same Right Wing bunch that push for every law that can make the mega-corporations and the very rich even richer.  They are out to cut Social Security, veteran’s programs, Medicare, education, medical care and food help for the poorest, and refuse to get serious about rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure.

Meanwhile, they preserve our third major crisis - - the permanent war status, with bloated military contracting corporations and the ugly, horrible reign of death, destruction and waste.

Time is drawing nigh to do something serious about these crises, instead of being distracted by gun control. Nothing serious is going to be done about it anyway.

[riverwarren]

FISA Reauthorization Vote

by Brian Wojtalewicz Published 01-09-13 in The Appleton Press

Appleton, MN – Thank you very much Senator Al Franken for standing up for our Constitutional rights against unwarranted surveillance and searches by government agents under the flawed and dangerous FISA law. Senator Al stood with real backbone, with other Senators like Sherrod Brown of Ohio, John Tester of Montana, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Tom Harkin of Iowa, and even a very few Republicans like Rand Paul of Kentucky.

Proponents of extending FISA, The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, say it is needed to conduct surveillance on terrorists, but Franken and other senators correctly objected that it goes too far, allowing secret surveillance of U.S. citizens.  Senator Klobuchar and others who voted for the FISA extension essentially took George Bush’s program of warrantless wiretapping, a radical threat to our Fourth Amendment rights, and institutionalized it for another five years. Senator Klobuchar continues her support of the FISA law, which first passed in 2008 giving retroactive immunity to Bush and Cheney, who have admitted conducting secret, illegal wiretapping, contrary to federal criminal law. With this new renewal by the votes of Senator Klobuchar and more Republicans than Democrats, the law will continue to allow the government agents to get secret court orders, that do not require probable cause like regular search warrants, for any e-mails or phone calls going to and from overseas.  These communications are only supposed to deal with “foreign intelligence information,” which of course can be argued by government agents, who are never held accountable and remain secret, to mean anything. And how do these secret agents even find out about whether your phone call involves “foreign intelligence information” without first listening in?

Mr. Obama, who ran against such secret surveillance during his first presidential campaign, now embraces and demands it. Senator Amy Klobuchar swore to uphold the constitution at least twice, as a new lawyer and as a senator.  Yet she shamefully voted for the first overreaching FISA law and this extension, along with a majority of Republican Senators, in contrast to Senator Franken. 

[riverwarren]

Caring About Murdered Children, Really?

by Brian Wojtalewicz Released 12-20-12

Imagine if the killer of the Connecticut kids and educators had waited a little longer before killing himself.  Imagine if he had waited until rescuers and teachers had filled the hallways, and then commenced more slaughter.  Fellow Americans, this is what President Obama and the CIA are doing in our name.

It is an established practice of our CIA to wait for some minutes after they shoot a missile from a drone in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, to allow rescuers to rush to the scene, and then shoot another missile in the same place. They have slaughtered at least 175 children. That’s about the size of the Appleton Elementary student body now.  How would we feel if we found out at noon tomorrow that they were all killed by a bomb?  What if we also knew that it could likely be followed by another bomb? And on any given day, the next bomb will come down on any group, like an outdoor wedding party, which we have bombed in Afghanistan. Many more innocent dads, moms, brothers, sisters and grandparents have been slaughtered than the 175 confirmed child deaths. Yes, Christian soldiers, do unto others as you would have done unto you.

These kids and other innocent people weren’t killed by a lone, deranged gunman.  Those defenseless human beings over in  three of the most poor countries on our planet do their screaming and crying, andattend the funerals of their children with the knowledge that the slaughter comes from very intelligent people, spending millions of dollars, from a far away place called the United States, the richest nation on the planet.  Why?  They are told it’s because Osama bin Laden and about 2 dozen other religious fundamental crazies, killed almost 3,000 Americans years ago, before some of their murdered children were even born.  They’re also well aware that Osama bin Laden has already been murdered in vengeance, along with many of his key aids, who were not even from their countries.

Mr. Obama told the nation on TV: “They had their entire lives ahead of them--birthdays, graduations, weddings, kids of their own...We’ve endured too many of these tragedies in the past few years.”  The arrogance and hypocrisy sicken me.  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  Really? 

Mr. Obama and others afflicted with power arrogance, like George Bush slaughtering Iraq and Afghan people, and Ronald Reagan illegally selling missiles to Iran to secretly finance the murders of thousands of peasant farmers and laborers in Central America, seem to have no trouble imposing death sentences without their victims getting a chance to contest it in court. It’s always ”trust us, we have the intelligence, we know whatwe’re doing.” Some of us recall that during the carnage we visited on Viet Nam. We know now that in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen that they are slaughtering by drones without even some local informant branding the targets as terrorists. Many are aimed at any small group of young males that appear on the satellite cameras.  Recently three boys out gathering cow chips for the family fireplace in Afghanistan were slaughtered with one of our multi-million dollar “precision” bombs. Their grandfather has a hard time understanding America as the world leader of law and peace, after viewing the ripped up bodies of his son Anwar and a grandson.  What about the life and pursuit of happiness for 16-year-old Abdulrahman al Awlaki, when he was killed at a family back yard barbeque in Yemen? 

And the so-called left-leaning media of the USA?  They rarely if ever talk about this slaughter, not MSNBC, much less the right-wing mouthpiece Fox News. Only Democracy Now and other programs on Free Speech TV ( 9415 Dish or 348 DirecTV) have been exposing this nightmare of our USA-delivered slaughter.  And I don’t see the PBS Newshour and other news shows giving the names and photos of these slaughtered children along with those of our dead soldiers in their rare nod to the ongoing carnage in east Asia.

Many politicians are running to cameras to express shock and horror, as if we have to hear from them.  One suggested that church bells should ring once for each death in Connecticut.  I wonder if there is a single church in the USA that is willing to ring the bell each time an innocent civilian is slaughtered by our missiles in east Asia or Africa?  What would Jesus say?

[riverwarren]

Romney Debate Deception

by Brian Wojtalewicz Published 10-9-12 in The Appleton Press

So Romney won the first debate, because he looked directly into the camera more, and had a much higher word count than Obama, and because he attacked more, and he looked confident?  If these are the standards on whether a Presidential debate is won, when the future of this nation is at stake, I am appalled. What about what they actually said, and the truth or deceit behind it? 

Romney claimed that Obama wasn’t tough enough on China, yet it was Romney who shipped American jobs overseas to a Chinese sweat shop to increase his corporate profits.

Romney laughed as he promised to eliminate the funding for PBS.  Do you understand that this means job losses right here in our village of Appleton at the Pioneer Public TV station?  It would mean job losses for thousands of other Americans at PBS stations around the country. Of course, Rupert Murdock, the Australian right-wing owner of Fox News would be elated, cutting out more competition for his propaganda arm of the Republican Party. 

Do we really want Medicare turned into a voucher system, as Romney proposes?  Did you agree with Romney when he said that if you are over 60, it doesn’t matter to you and you don’t need to listen, concerning changes to Medicare?  I happen to care about the health of others under 60, and care a great deal about medical coverage of my children and grandchildren who I hope will eventually be on Medicare. Are you like Romney or me? Romney repeated his false claim that Obama cut over $716 Billion in benefits from Medicare. Obama cut it mainly from insurance corporation contractors in Medicare, and from wasteful medical practices.

Romney claimed he wants energy independence, yet he promises to reverse Obama’s new fuel efficiency standards. Romney falsely claimed “about half of [the green firms Obama invested in] have gone out of business.”  The truth:  Only three out of the 26 loan guarantee recipient companies have filed for bankruptcy. Romney also falsely claimed that Obama “provided $90 Billion in breaks to the green energy world.” $23 Billion of that actually was put into “clean coal,” energy-efficiency upgrades, updating the electricity grid, and environmental clean up, largely for old nuclear weapon sites.

Romney attacked the Affordable Care Act (Obama Care), even though the central ideas of it came from Republicans years ago, and it is exactly the plan Romney pushed through Massachusetts. Romney deceitfully claimed: “But I didn’t raise taxes to pay for it.”  He raised “fees” to pay for it, but the biggest part of the payment came from the federal government to Massachusetts. Romney also falsely claimed that “the CBO says up to 20 million people will lose their insurance as Obama Care goes into effect next year.”  False:  it would expand coverage to 30 million Americans.

Romney claimed that the National Federation of Independent Businesses, “said your plan will kill 700,000 jobs.”  The truth:  the NFIB is a notorious right-wing advocacy org that doesn’t really represent small business, and the study they did citing 700,000 job losses didn’t even analyze what Obama actually proposed.

Romney falsely claimed that Obama put in place as much debt “as all prior presidents combined.”  This isn’t even close to true. 

Romney falsely claimed: “I don’t have a $5 Trillion tax cut.”  The Tax Policy Center examined Romney’s plan for a 20% across-the-board cut on all federal income tax levels, even for the wealthiest, and complete elimination of the estate tax, even for billionaires. They found that it would indeed amount to $5 Trillion over the next decade. Romney further claimed that he would do no tax cut that would add to the deficit.  How do you do a 20% across-the-board income tax cut, and elimination of the estate tax, and not add to the government debt? 

Romney admitted that he wanted to get rid of the Dodd-Frank law that adds new regulations to big banks in the attempt to avoid another huge financial meltdown, but claims that he agrees with some bank regulation. He failed to say what regulations he dislikes, and what regulations he would agree with. This is a guy who became a multi-billionaire by gathering Wall Street investors, along with money from Central American murdering dictators, and used it in Bain capital to loot existing American businesses, and send many jobs to China. Are you going to trust him to do the right thing for us citizens?

[riverwarren]

True Voter Fraud

By Brian Wojtalewicz Published 10/02/12 in the Appleton Press Just last week an election supervisor in Florida discovered 106 “questionable” voter registration applications turned in by a contractor for the Republican Party of Florida. The handwriting on the supposed signatures looked all too similar, coupled with missing key information and addresses that were inaccurate. Turns out the contractor was actually an outfit controlled by the notorious Nathan Sproul, who gets hired year after year by state Republican parties, and this year by the Romney campaign, despite repeated allegations of voter registration fraud. It works like this. They get paid very well (over a $million in Florida) to get new voters registered. When they meet a voter who identifies as Republican, they put down all accurate information, but when they meet one who identifies as Democrat or Independent, they place inaccurate information on the form, even after the person has signed it and walked away, which insures that the Democrat or Independent won’t be properly registered. The contractor for the California Republican Party got caught turning in over 1,000 fraudulent voter registrations this election year. The disguised outfits controlled by the notorious Sproul are now being paid for their work in key battleground states like North Carolina, Virginia and Colorado. This is the same Republican Party that has pushed new photo I.D. laws, including the proposed constitutional amendment here in Minnesota. They want a system that has now been instituted in Wisconsin, where college students with state college issued photo I.D. cards will find themselves not able to use those as sufficient I.D. to vote, because it has to be a different state-issued photo I.D.! There is no proof that people have used fake identification when voting. The Brennan Center for Justice reports that these new voter I.D. laws will cause denial of the right to vote to over 5 million American citizens. Those denied will be overwhelmingly from these groups of Americans who currently have no government photo I.D.: 6.0 million seniors 5.5 million African Americans 8.1 million Hispanics 4.5 million 18-24 year olds 15% of voters with household income under $35,000 a year The Republican Party doesn’t want fair elections. They are working feverishly and with deceit to keep millions of Americans from voting. The proposed constitutional amendment on voter I.D. in Minnesota is just one part of their nationwide effort of voter suppression. It’s very important to VOTE NO on November 6.

[riverwarren]

Don't tell your grandkids you sat on the sidelines when, someday, they asked you how this all went down.

[riverwarren]

Keystone Pipeline Whistleblower

“Let’s Have At It”  Published 1-10-12 in the Appleton Press

by Brian Wojtalewicz 

Mike Klink used to be an inspector for the giant construction corporation Bechtel.  It was a major contractor on the original TransCanada Keystone Pipeline, finished in 2010.  Klink cited numerous problems of shoddy materials and poor work on that pipeline, which brings tar sands crude oil from Canada to our Midwest states.  Rather than fix the problems and do it right, Bechtel fired Klink.

Klink emphasizes that he is speaking as an engineer, and not as an environmentalist.  (What’s wrong with being both?)  He points out that since the construction, there have been over a dozen spills on that pipeline, and the main problems are at pump stations, where he cited the faulty construction.  He is warning against letting TransCanada build an even longer pipeline from Alberta all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico in Texas.

Klink wasn’t surprised to hear about a terrible spill in Ludden, N.D., where a 60-foot plume of crude oil spewed tens of thousands of gallons of toxic tar sand on farm fields.  TransCanada’s reaction?  It claims the pipeline has been okay, and 14 spills aren’t too bad.  As Klink points out, this TransCanada pipeline is leaking like a sieve and this is in the first year of operation!

The Texas oil men and the Republican Party all over the country are pressuring Obama to approve this pipeline.  They’ve pounded out a false claim that it will be bring 30,000 jobs to Americans, when the jobs will be more like about 3,000.  Most of the oil that reaches the gulf from this proposed new disastrous pipeline would actually leave the U.S.  Most worrisome about this boondoggle project that will fatten the profits of Texas oil men is that it encourages the ongoing tar sands mining in Alberta, which promises to be the worst global warming project in our planet’s history.

Will we Americans come to our senses in time?

[riverwarren]

[riverwarren]

Romney, Bain and Jobs to China

“Let’s Have At It”                                                                                             Published 9-4-12 in the Appleton Press

by Brian Wojtalewicz

Tom Gaulrapp and Cheryl Randecker have both worked at Sensata Technologies in Freeport, Illinois for 33 years, where they have made sensors for airplanes and cars. The plant had been owned for a long time by Honeywell, but was taken over by Sensata. Not  long ago they were stunned to discover that the plant was going to be shut down as of November this year. They got on the computer and discovered that Sensata was actually owned by none other than Bain Capital, Mitt Romney’s venture capital corporation. They were told by management that the operation was being moved to China. Not much later, some of the workers, like Cheryl, were actually ordered to train Chinese workers who would take over their jobs!

Further infuriating Tom and the other 170 American workers who will lose their jobs is that just a couple weeks before the Chinese people were flown in to be trained by them, the company took down the American flag in front of the plant, and put it back up after the Chinese had left.  Do you need more to understand the true loyalty of the modern corporations who are preying on us?

Cheryl, Tom and co-workers are being emotionally supported by friends, neighbors and other American workers, about 35,000 of whom have signed a petition. They have sent it to Mitt Romney and his personal buddies, the guys who continue to manage Bain Capital. They have also attended a few Republican Party rallies trying to tell what is happening to them. At a rally in Bettendorf, Iowa, when they started hollering to try to get Romney’s  attention to talk to him about this nightmare, they were drowned out by Republican enthusiasts with the chant of “USA!” USA!”  Do you get the picture of what the modern Republican Party stands for?

The last day of work for the 170 Sensata workers is the day before the national election in November. These American workers, who made a great product and did their jobs faithfully for years and years, also had an accusation screamed at them in Iowa. It was:  “Communist! Communist!” That’s right, these people, who were trying to get Romney’s attention to stop the transfer of their jobs to communist China, were being accused of being communists by the Republican Party faithful.

[riverwarren]

[riverwarren]

Until it happened to me

“Let’s Have At It” Published 11-21-11 in the Appleton Press

by Brian Wojtalewicz

  I recently heard a “man on the street” radio interview.  The man had been looking for work for months, and his unemployment was about to run out.  He said that he was a Republican, and had always thought that the people on unemployment were just milking the system, and they really could get work if they wanted to.  Then it happened to him, and his world view really tilted.  He was angry at Congress.

The answer of Congressional Republicans to our economic crises, with 25 million people in need of full-time work, real wages declining over the last decade, and one in four mortgages under water, is to block any assistance to those Americans on their financial knees.  Obama and the Democrats have been trying to get serious investments in rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure of roads, bridges, sewage plants and schools.  The Republicans are stopping it.  Why?  Because Obama and the Democrats want to pay for it with a surtax on people making more than a million dollars a year.  Never mind that this surtax would amount to less than 1%.  The Republicans give their same old bogus argument that a tax on the wealthiest will be a “job killer.”  Well, George Bush demanded and got a cut on the tax levels of especially the highest earners in our society.  It has been in place for close to 10 years.  It sure has stimulated job growth in this country, right?  Wrong. The stock answer that Republican leaders give in the face of financial problems is to borrow more money.  It’s what George Bush did to finance two major wars.  Tim Pawlenty did it in Minnesota against the school systems.  The current Republicans in charge of the Minnesota legislature did it against the school systems again and also against the tobacco fund.

I am convinced that the Republican leadership of this nation is actually content to continue the ballooning national debt and deficit, and let more than 25 million Americans suffer.  They aren’t willing to do anything about the hugest wastehole of federal spending - - the international military empire we maintain, and the bloated military contractors who feed on it.  They’ve also blocked the cutting of subsidies for the most profit-bloated industry the globe has ever seen - - the oil corporations.  They have also blocked the Democrat effort to end the off-shore tax dodging by major corporations.

Their primary answer now to the financial crisis we face is to dig the hole deeper:  slash medical care for our aged, disabled and poor children, along with tightening Social Security benefits and handing over our Social Security fund to the rapacious Wall Street brokers.  What great ideas for helping Americans and their communities climb out of the financial hole!