Opinion columnists and commentators keep pounding away on the same points because those points need to be changed.
Silence is simply not an option.
Are we successful? Are all the anonymous (yes, even if you slap your name and photo up you're still 'anonymous' in the world of the internet..how do we really know that's you 'just sayin'? What a ridiculous debate to even waste time on when the content being spoken is what has legitimacy. If we wanted to be recognized for ourselves instead of what we bring to the table, we'd be a politician now, wouldn't we?) voices out here really getting their point across?
You betcha.
Another welcome back this morning goes out to the Boyd. Up on the Aspen Daily News.
Bravo!! Very well done.
Johnny Boyd. In a tribute to Paula and James Crown and their companion in philosophy Warren Klug:
"...If ACRA’s lobbying efforts prove fruitful, the businesses of Aspen would have an unlimited supply of labor that is stripped of all rights granted to American citizens. With no avenue to speak out or air grievances, these “workers in limbo” would be a boon to all employers looking to save a buck. A more cynical policy probably can’t be imagined, though that isn’t a challenge.
During most of the last decade the SkiCo imported its labor from abroad. Its ability to secure visas from the federal government was key in making sure that wages for every business in the valley are kept low in spite of the skyrocketing cost of living. If you can’t move the mountain to the cheap labor, move the cheap labor to the mountain. As the largest employer in the valley, the SkiCo sets the bar for all employers, and especially for ACRA.
The SkiCo ignored the outcry of last year to pay a living wage and the controversy went away. That’s how it usually works in America. Almost every issue is a passing fad. It’s one of the hazards of living in a shallow sound-bite society. SkiCo has no motivation to pay its employees enough to lift them above the poverty line because the pressure is off.
It is this disdain for the American worker that is causing certain segments of society to take to the streets in protest. The avarice of large employers has finally been linked to the economic depression of American workers. The workers are angry and rejecting the circumstances that leave fully employed laborers forced to live in slums because of the greed of employers. The protesters have become liquid for the winter, but this is no passing fad. I fear there will be blood...."
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"Truth goes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Then it is violently opposed. Finally, it is accepted as self-evident."
12 comments:
well i guess johnny boyd will never be given a skico ambassador position. lol. skico would not even give madeleine osberger an ambassador position... read punish her....for being outspoken [as former editor of the snowmass sun---she was fair but critical of the crowns]
Thank god Johnny doesn't care.
Probably thinks it's an honor.
Madeleine's missed. Glad Johnny's back.
Warren Klug loves his neighbor alright. Well, all except the brown ones. But what Warren really loves is his pocket.
Didn't that Jesus of Nazareth dude say something about greed? Hello, Warren? Are you there?
How to fight back is the message of this book. Jeffrey Clements saw corporate behavior up close during two stints as assistant attorney general in Massachusetts, litigating against the tobacco industry, enforcing fair trade practices, and leading more than one hundred attorneys and staff responsible for consumer and environmental protection, antitrust practices, and the oversight of health care, insurance, and financial services. He came away from the experience repeating to himself this indelible truth: “Corporations are not people.” Try it yourself: “Corporations are not people.” Again: “Corporations are not people.” You are now ready to join what Clements believes is the most promising way to counter Citizens United: a campaign for a constitutional amendment affirming that free speech and democracy are for people and that corporations are not people. Impossible? Not at all, says Clements. We have already amended the Constitution twenty-seven times. Amendment campaigns are how we have always made the promise of equality and liberty more real. Difficult? Of course; as Frederick Douglass taught us, power concedes nothing without a struggle. To contend with power, Clements and his colleague John Bonifaz founded Free Speech for People, a nationwide nonpartisan effort to overturn Citizens United and corporate rights doctrines that unduly leverage corporate economic power into political power. What Clements calls the People’s Rights Amendment could be our best hope to save the “great American experiment.”
To find out why, read on, and as you read, keep in mind the words of Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, who a century ago stood up to the mighty combines of wealth and power that were buying up our government and called on Americans of all persuasions to join him in opposing the “naked robbery” of the public’s trust:
It is not a partisan issue; it is more than a political issue; it is a great moral issue. If we condone political theft, if we do not resent the kinds of wrong and injustice that injuriously affect the whole nation, not merely our democratic form of government but our civilization itself cannot endure.
Veteran journalist Bill Moyers
You and I are more than a few clicks apart on some of the most basic politics, Lee.
But there's always room in every discussion to find the common ground and one of the things I enjoy commenting with you on is that you can see that too.
It's about the trust. It's about the individual man and his family. Their community and their lives.
Human beings are not meant to be herded into a pen and broke into a routine that's controlled by a few. They're meant to first be a good person contributing and taking care of themselves and their own sphere of focus. Their family, their worship, their friends and their own community. The only governship there should be politically is what effects them in statehood. Even then most of their day to day lives should revolve around their township and region.
If we would just remember who we are as individuals and tend to our own lives with responsibility for our neighbors and community to be strong, self sustaining and healthy then our collective voice is unified politically.
I believe the founding fathers had that core belief as their goal. In order for a Free Republic to stand unified as one on the world stage it has to have a strong base within its states. The older I grow the more I become a pretty strict constitutionalist.
I believe Americans know how to fight. They've just forgotten that the first step in fighting back is to be well armed and well trained. We've let our own front yards grow a few weeds of neglect and its time to clean up. If there's one thing this near destruction from within in the past few years has given us it should be the realization that we're not going to survive like we're accustomed to if we don't rise up and become strong Americans now.
When you find that spark inside that tells you there's no turning back in taking on a cause, then the only thing that's going to get you through it is discipline. Staying the course. Adapting, changing, re-group, re-arm with whatever is needed. But always remember that what you think is victory is all that's needed because everyone with you or against you has their own idea of what the win is supposed to be. In these causes that are all about the gray area, that's the toughest part. It's a whole lot simpler to take on the kind of battle that has a clear revealed offensive and defensive. Get into these gray area human frailties takes special people who might not look like they're so special and nice on the surface. Diving into a cess pool to get to the drain plug is not an easy gig. If a man or a woman does only one thing in their lifetime then let it be to stand for something.
Glenwood22 and MR,
I am with you, my brothers. We must unite the Tea Party and OWS. Power to the little people. Drop our differences and stand in defiance of power.
I was at an art opening tonight and the talk was all about this third party: the Justice Party. The mayor of SLC is running against the fraud Obama. Obama is saying he's for the middle class? Do you believe him? Thoughts?
We've never had a president as bad as Obama. It isn't just the country in the lowest frame of mind we've ever been in and feeling near hopeless and it isn't the few generations of debt he's saddled us with. It isn't even the broken economy and leadership.
What Obama hurt the most and which is going to turn out to be his complete downfall is that he made the mistake of showing his core values of what he really thinks of the American people. That wasn't just elitism. Every American turned against him, whether they'll admit it or not when he called us lazy, disgraceful and with no pride.
Big mistake that will work toward the favor of getting a real leader in his place. Don't mess with Americans.
I'm a real Democrat. Therefore I now vote Republican.
I'm all for anything that splits up the two-party system.
What it will all come to in the end is the Independent.
I believe Americans will eventually be an Independent majority of "no party". The key to that working is election law reform at state levels. Just because one is unaffiliated should not bar them from having the same rights as a party affiliation. Make it clean, simple and straight across the board that party affiliation is not a requirement to vote in any election.
Rocky has a strong following and was a popular Mayor. I personally think he should sit out this one in 2012, concentrate and grow and then if up for it go ahead and try in 2016. Makes more sense.
Nobody should be worried about Obama. He won't win. Don't underestimate the left machine but lose no sleep over Barack Obama.
Brothers, and Sisters,
Like many of you, I believe corporations should not have the rights of people. Look at Skico: very powerful, but little social responsibility. In my fight, I learned that Skico can and will act without any regard for right and wrong. They know there will be few repurcussions.
Also, like many of you I am a Jeffersonian and believe in limited federal govt. I believe that the fed govt. [TSA, military, "homeland security" and this War on "Terror"] needs to vastly reduced.
I still am amazed that Michelle Obama lunches with the limo liberal "We'll sell weapons to any country to make a buck" Crowns when she jets into Aspen.
Obama has not closed Guantanomo, continues the fed govt's attack on our civil liberties, and Main Street got sold out for Wall Street.
My fear is that Obama is blowing smoke with all this "I'm for the Middle Class." Ok,then MR Pres, prove it.
Does anyone think Glass Steagall should be returned? Any hope for this Justice third party? What about Citizens United? What about this Sanders Constitutional ammendment to take the $ out of politics and term limits for all officials.
It's real interesting to watch the Tea Party move away from the image of having just one personality showing in public attention as their leader.
I've always liked Palin. I'm not a tea partier, I'm a conservative. Unaffiliated now. So fed up with the GOP in Colorado after the losing to Obama and mid-terms. Never going back except to once in awhile jump ship for primaries until the arrogant county leaders get off their back ends and get the election laws changed so anybody registerd legally and active can vote in primaries. Until that's done they just keep sitting on their laurels with a round racked and aimed at their proverbial feet.
Same thing for the Democrats in Colorado. Primary voting rules are non-partisan.
I like Palin because she motivates. Love her or dislike her it doesn't matter. She relates to the folks and it works. That one little tiny gorgeous woman changed the face of politics in this country forever. A form of Tea Party Envy exists everywhere.
GASA (Glass-Steagal) is another really great example of laws and rules we already have on the books that just keep getting ignored. Say what you will about Perry. There's another one that has that natural something inside that inspires people. One of the differences is that the guy knows wth he's talking about. for 11 years he's kept the 13th largest economy in the world balanced and growing like a beetle kill fire. This idea that he really could make work of ripping DC apart from the inside out, take no prisoners and cut the congress and senate down to either 70 to 100 days a year or 140-175 days ever other year is the best plan anyone has ever had.
Big Government first needs to do what our own local county and city governments are doing. Get out all the laws and the codes and clean them up. Eliminate, remind, revise, rework and update. Hick's been pushing that on state levels too. Then get these elected shills out of Washington DC and back out here in the districts holding down a job and living with the laws they create.
That one single idea, Lee. Is the best way to make real change. It's not going to be done overnight. But it does separate in the minds of the people, the politics from the job. And starts making what we alread have start working again.
Look at the border. Every politician except for full amnesty and open border types says nothing can be done at all and the media needs to quit asking for something to be done in reform until that border is sealed and kept that way. That's the law we have right now. Mostly ignored. Costs us hundreds of billions of dollars a year and we have our own homeless, hungry, going without education and healthcare legal citizens. We don't want their drug cartels and wars. We want out cops and agents safe.
These new parties trying to start up need to inspire instead of attack. They need a leader in each one.
After all, how much difference now is there really? Liberals be honest. What difference really is there between Jane Fonda and Sarah Palin?
It's not the individual, it's their ability to inspire and lead. I believe all that really needs to happen is to keep creating enough friction like the Tea Party, this Justice group, No Labels and dozens more that are out there until the two-party choke hold is completely broken.
I'll stick with not being associated with any of them.
Obama will lose because of what he is and what he's done and not done. There's that leadership thing again.
despite the fact that I'm banned from the Art Museum [my neighbor's first question---Isn't that city property? Don't you pay taxes? ---the next was: Aren't they an ART museum?] ----I'm actually optimistic that the community can all work it out as one big extended family ---and you know with family ---there's always bickering. I loved a post-it note on the Histo...rical Society's poster board: “a community in conflict is a healthy caring community.”.
Witness the community picnic this summer. Socialites and smokestack people---all breaking bread together. Granted I did not kick back and have a beer with Paula or Jim, or for that matter, Michelle Obama. But then again, don't you have to pay 10K to go to that barefoot picnic at General Dynamics Villa Royale on Tiehack Drive? I wonder if they put little toy soldiers, bombs, airplanes, or at least a scud missile in the gift bag? Why not? One of Paula's friends told me that she's doing her PhD at the Art Institute of Chicago and is on Obama's council for the arts. It could be situationist art with the theme: Democracy these days is just one big auction and I'm laughing all the way to my PhD in....art.
I was working on my roof and one of our neighbors flew over my roof on his way to the private airport in a......helicopter. I guess the traffic on Castle Creek...
As we say in Texas, "Money is like manure — it does no good unless you spread it around." LA just passed a living wage law. Aspen? Time for the limousine liberal crowd to own up.
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