Maddened Gardener

Our Next Civil War

2009-08-12T11:11:00.001-04:00

We have slid into another Civil War, without noticing the diminution of our rights, and the unwavering hatred that a very vocal minority has for the general well-being of our Nation. Once again, a few very loud firebrands call for moral indignation at the oppression of their perceived rights – their rights to dictate their minority views on the many. Hanging behind the shredded and defunct curtain of State’s Rights they once again call for their followers to rise to arms – whether it be through force or vindictiveness – to force their tightly controlled and editorially incorrect views of the Constitution.

As a citizen of the United States (whose forbears fought in many of our Wars) I am frightened for the future this portends. To call upon State’s Rights is to bring up every specious argument nullified by the failure of the Confederacy to support its own cause. As history has shown, many of the leaders of that earlier Civil War professed profound belief that their cause was just and could be won, “if only” the people would show the determination that the leaders showed in misappropriating the rights given them in the Constitution. How can one hide behind, or use, a Constitution, if one so violently disagrees with it? How can one then use it as a shield – even a weapon – when fighting against it? And in hindsight, how could such supposedly educated people be willing to go to war, with all its commensurate expenses in money and lives, solely to keep a race in slavery to maintain their own wealth? Will history eventually show that this Civil War was started and is being fought for similarly evil and self-centered purposes?

One of the weapons the Far Right is using is the voice – they raise it to a higher pitch with as many wild accusations as they can. This is the old magician’s trick – keep the audience’s eye focused on the hand or face while the other hand is doing the hiding, the dirty work, the trickery. The shouting is a ruse to keep people from focusing on their trickery – on their dirty work of driving wedges between people through mistrust and hatred. Their trickery is designed to get them in power and keep them in power regardless of the consequences to their fellow citizens and our country. Exactly the same thing that the Fascists did in Germany and Italy.

U.S. Socialism 101

2009-03-09T16:01:00.003-04:00

So, we’re turning into a Socialist country. In the GOP vernacular I take it to mean that those who have the most, have the most responsibility to help those who have the least. No…wait…sorry, I mis-wrote there. In GOP vernacular it must mean “You’re stealing my hard-earned money to support my fellow citizens who have not had the same opportunities, nor connections for advancement, that I have had.”

No…wait…that’s still wrong, because we know for a fact that those Feminazi’s have finally accomplished what they were fighting for - fair treatment and wages for women (we won't talk about any other minorities, it just confuses some people....).

In GOP vernacular it seems to really mean “You’re taking my money to help some lazy Democrat/illegal immigrant slob.”

Kick me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t the Christian church teach that you are supposed to share and help those amongst you who are in need? Don’t we have a LOT of people (and I suspect a lot of them are Christians) who are in need?

Alrighty then, it seems we’re becoming Socialists because we’re raising taxes on those who have a lot in order to help those who have little – or nothing. And some of those who have a lot are bitching about it because they have money and don’t want to “give” it to those who are in need.

Since I already told you that you could kick me if I was wrong – now you can slap me if I’m wrong. Doesn’t the Christian church teach members that they should help those in need? In fact, didn’t Jesus Christ Himself say something along the lines of “As you treat the very least among you, so have you treated me.”? So how does the Christian Right settle this seeming imbalance – where their religion encourages (some would say demands) that they take care of those in need, yet they themselves would prefer to NOT do so…calling it unfair taxation? In fact, aren't the people whom Obama is calling upon us to help not the “very least” amongst us?

I guess not. It truly appears as if the United States of America is headed down the road to true, dreaded, Socialism.

Which would really scare me, I suppose (at least I was taught in Eisenhower-era grade school it should scare me) is that we might be drifting to Socialism. I know I should believe what I’m taught rather than thinking for myself, if we weren’t already a Socialist country.

How can that be, you ask? Simple. Public education, public libraries, police departments, fire departments – oh, I could go on for a while. These are all things that are paid for with our taxes – which means that we are funding agencies through our taxes that provide services for everyone, regardless of their class or race or, well, you get my drift.

So, if you don’t want the U.S. to become a Socialist nation I’m afraid you are too late, my friend. Ever since we began providing free public schooling for all children (and in fact, it’s a law that they attend these free schools), ever since we have provided police and fire protection, ever since we have had public libraries – we’ve been a Socialist nation.

Better take another shot of coffee, and wake up to reality.

Not that I'm not excited, mind you...

2009-02-06T10:27:00.002-05:00

You have to understand that my perspective is somewhat odd – a white girl from the 50’s. I grew up with (not during, not in) the 60’s in a Republican house. I’m a lesbian, whose parents knew and were torn between pride and shame. I do not fit most stereotypes. So I grew up alongside moments, not really ever part of them.

I’m reading the latest Newsweek magazine, and it has a moving quote from Booker T. Washington and it’s dated 1901. Then it hits me between the eyes when it says that “in historical terms, Selma was only the day before yesterday, Sumter the day before that”. I’m a history student, and have focused on the Civil War numerous times in my life. Knowing the political reasons behind the War, and the times leading up to it, you realize the current movement is a reflection of so much more than someone of a race other than Caucasian being in the White House. Being born in the 50’s means that 1901 isn’t “that far back”, and the current date isn’t out of perspective. Kind of like it felt to know someone in their 60’s when you were in your 30’s, and they had seen so much and experienced the same points in time in so many different ways.

Barack’s Different.

But that doesn’t make him “my” president.

That’s what it means to this perspective, this statistic that will not be looked for amongst all the studies and statistics being currently run. I and my sisters will be a side pot-shot by alarmist and separatist blowhards on radio and television. We’ll become a thing again, and not a person.

Yes, Martin Luther King Jr. and his message of peace took longer to get to most of us than it did in a third world country being held down by the Mother Country. (Was that us, or was it India?) but no one wants to know what it means to someone like me. It really doesn’t mean anything to Me. Unless he fixes the economy, and makes things more fair, and cleaner. Then his election and administration mean a lot to Me.

We’ll wait. Again. And we’ll see. There are quite a lot of Us, watching and waiting.

Corporate Downsizing

2009-01-16T12:25:00.001-05:00

Circuit City is the latest company to shut its doors and lay off thousands of workers. Who knows why. That’s not a question, but rather a statement – because there is one answer that most companies will flatly deny. Some companies are happy to have a recession hit as those are the companies that see payroll as a cost, not an investment. These companies think that by reducing their payroll they’re saving costs (they like to think of it as some perverse kind of amortization) rather than realizing that by eliminating the people they’re eliminating the new ideas and hard sweat that will get them through this economic downturn.

Remember that old giant, Arthur Anderson? They had a delightful corporate policy of “up or out” – meaning you either got promoted or fired. While working there one of my friends said she firmly believed that the highest tiers of the company were occupied by the most mediocre of talent. Her logic was quite sound – the brightest saw the company for what it was and got out quickly, the slowest were figured out by the company and jettisoned. As time went along, the best and least were winnowed out, leaving the truly mediocre as the partners in charge. (I left and went independent, a year after a manager actually asked me if I was in the right field – I had to ask her to look at my personnel file to confirm I had a masters degree in what I was doing. She did look at my file, which to my surprise was in her desk drawer, not in the HR department – another sign of a truly dysfunctional environment.)

I believe this is true with many of our largest companies – the bright ones leave for either smaller (less risk-averse) companies, or start their own. The dullest are winnowed out which leaves those companies with the middling crowd – and apparently the ones who believe that because they’ve survived to the top pinnacles they are owed something more than a basic salary. True, in many cases there are people fired because their manager is intimidated by them – but those are the ones who should have seen the writing on the wall and left earlier.

Have you ever been unfortunate enough to be amongst those folks in the rarified air of “upper management”? They create their cocoon of entitlement simply from having survived. They believe they are entitled to the large salaries that they vote for each other because they managed to get rid of everyone else in their way – either by boring them to death, or eliminating them. In one job as an HR manager I knew it was going to be short term from day one. After I got the job my boss told me as long as the big league players’ salaries and annual bonuses were taken care of properly I didn’t have to worry about anything else. Silly me – all that time I thought Human Resources was about taking care of ALL of the people in the company, not just the Top 10 Salaries.

I have since left that field (BIG surprise there) as without fail each company I worked for saw Human Resources as a cost, not an investment. So it’s no surprise to me now that companies are throwing their employees out the window with both hands, thinking it will save them money. The smart ones are keeping their employees and finding better ways to make use of them and other resources. Once the economy starts to pick up they’ll be in desperate need of the intellectual capital that they so glibly discarded as a cost-saving measure.

And what of the thousands of employees fired by Circuit City? My guess is that places like Best Buy and others will find excuses to clean house of their lesser performers (or those who are too grating to their supervisors) and replace them with the best of the jettisoned Circuit City folk. A downward spiral, to be sure. But then that’s what the Free Market is all about really, the ability to Freely eliminate workers without any sort of ramifications to those folk in the upper echelon, who are more interested in their pay and bonuses being correct than in any other aspect of their company.

What's up with Lobbyists?

2008-12-29T14:03:00.000-05:00

OK, I’m wondering why – with all the scandals coming out of Washington related to politicians who obviously only want government jobs for the perqs – why the voters can’t pass referendums that stipulate that any local politician who takes lobbyist money can’t be on a ballot? Why can’t we push for at least ethical local representation? And if that works, why can’t we – the people (remember us?) push for referendums that make it illegal for the kind of pandering and vote-buying that remains so wildly prevalent. Why can’t we remove the NRA, AARP, and so many others, from their positions of purchased influence? Why can’t we demand that these organizations report the actual percentage of their expenditures that go to lobbying? Why can’t we demand to see what they are lobbying for, and what affect the results will have on us – those taxpayers who are giving the money to the lobbyists so they can bribe the politicians? Why don’t we just call lobbying what it really is – bribery?

Cheers Amanda!

2008-12-18T17:19:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to blow a horn for my gardening friend, Amanda Thomsen, who is the new blogger for Horticulture magazine, with her witty and wonderful blog Kiss My Aster. If you've not read it, well...you really need to catch up on your online gardening!

Stupid Git

2008-12-15T17:56:00.002-05:00

"Republicans wasted no time in criticizing Kennedy as unqualified for the job and unfamiliar with the state.

"If anything, it makes me more determined to run," said Rep. Peter King, a Long Island Republican who has already expressed his interest in the seat."

So - all of her experience with non-profits, her degrees, and her other experience (president of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation and a member of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award Committee; also a director of the Commission on Presidential Debates; a director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund; honorary chairwoman of the American Ballet Theatre; and vice chairwoman of New York City's Fund for Public Schools) DON'T MATTER?

The fact that Rep. King already has an elected office makes him MORE qualified? Well heck then, if being elected to office is all that's required, why don't they just reach out and get Blago?

Layoffs and Training Departments

2008-12-12T11:21:00.003-05:00

Sorry gang, as someone who spent many years in Training Departments, I gotta tell you that they really don't mean anything. Companies have them for two primary reasons, with the first being a recruiting tool. No company that wants to get good workers will NOT have a training department of some kind, as no one would want to go to work for a company that isn't interested in increasing the abilities of their employees. This fallacy is fairly obvious when you look at how a majority of courses are used, or rather not used, by companies. Many people attend, but how many have supervisors or managers back on the job who have a clue as to what that person just learned, or is anywhere near ready to take advantage of those new skills? Sorry - there's no transition from classroom to office in most instances. (Just ask how many companies run an ROI on their training....)

The second reason is it's a good place to begin letting people go to trim your salary expenses. Training is very easy to outsource, and even easier to replace with the new elearning rapture that companies are finding. The problem with elearning is the same as with the traditional live classroom experience - very little or no support from immediate supervisors when back on the job.

The exception to the rule of no support? Easy, that's when the skills being taught are things that are either required by law, or are static skills like statistical analysis - but nothing related to interpersonal skills. The reason why interpersonal skills aren't supported back on the job? Oh come on - do you really need for me to answer that one?

2008-12-12T10:56:00.003-05:00

HOLLYwood!
la-la-land....So Jennifer Aniston wants her life to be more private, and uses the opportunity of appearing nearly naked on a magazine cover to make that wish public knowledge. Excuse me? She can’t carry a movie and apparently can’t find a TV show that’s suitable for her self-image. What a pathetic run-up to a melt-down of a career. Please, can’t we just move on and worry about something more pertinent, like why Paris Hilton really DIDN’T run for president?

POLITICS
Also, I find it very entertaining how Rove and other Republicans have yet to leave the campaign trail – oh, wait, they NEVER leave the campaign trail, unless it's to start whitewashing their record over the past 8 years so they can win elections in 2010. (They'll work for their buddies on Wall Street and Corp. America in the meantime, why not, since they have all that money the Republicans like to funnel to Big Business?) For them the entire issue is about being in power, not about actually performing the public duty of the offices for which they strive with such diligent negativity and fear mongering.

Now there’s a columnist (the right-winger that the San Francisco Chronicle runs so they can say they’re balanced – when it’s obvious she isn’t) who is wondering why, after previous columns condemning anything Obama might even be thinking of because he's a liberal in her view, why-oh-why isn’t Obama stepping up and doing something about the economic crisis NOW (mid December). Shouldn’t someone remind Ms. Nasty Loser that her hero is still in office, and doing his very best imitation of President Buchanan? Namely, do nothing so the situation dissolves so badly that the next administration will be nearly helpless – and therefore to blame. At least, as others have noted, we don’t have to wait 3 years for the next administration to step in and try to save our Empire, all the while trying to trick the next administration into doing things that will handicap them in the future. (How come Hoover was smart enough at the end of his administration to try to entrap FDR, but not smart enough to try to do anything about the economy? Oh, wait – that’s right – he didn’t think anything needed to be done – he was convinced it would be good for the country to go through what it was going through, and the free market would salvage the remainder.)

Gotta wonder just how much similarity there is between the Empire of the U.S in the 21st century, and the Spanish Empire of the 17th century. Spain was the most powerful and wealthy superpower in Europe, all because of the gold they were raping out of the Americas. Once that pipeline dried up Spain declined to regular-country status (it didn't help that they had an inbred idiot as their last Hapsburg King). And now the U.S. Empire is crumbling, because the gold we were raping out of our homes and credit cards has dried up. Fortunately next year we won't have an idiot taking over the reigns of power.