The Business of America

Yesterday I saw an eagle. He was soaring over Route 1, along the Androscoggin River, between downtown Brunswick and Cook’s Corner. To see one is a rare gift.

When I was a pre-teen, you never saw eagles. They were near extinction.

This year, I’ve seen four eagles, including one night in April when I was sitting out on my deck overlooking Woodward Cove. Not more than 30 yards away from me was a large bald eagle, preening himself(?) in a tree. I watched  for nearly 15 minutes with binoculars ’til it was too dark to see him.

Don’t want to live in a world without bald eagles.

The reason that bald eagles have returned is that the Endangered Species Act did what it was intended to do—save the species under its care from extinction. It has done such a good job since being enacted—saving 99 percent of the species under its care from extinction that business interests in the U.S. want it relaxed and perhaps done away with: mainly so they can do what they do best—conduct America’s business, which is “bidness.”

Taxes on corporations continue to fall. (NY Times graph)

To talk with a businessman, you’d think that the “gooverment” was trying to put them out of business. The graph above shows something entirely different. Continue reading

The Real Corporate Candidate

A week ago, I received an invitation to attend a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton. It came from a relative on my wife’s side of the family. Apparently she figured I’d be an easy target, simply assuming I’d be supporting Clinton because of the alternative, Donald Trump.

This kind of thinking has galled me for months. The idea that we must vote for Hillary because of the specter of a Trump presidency is typical either/or thinking that I’ve been subjected to ever since I first started voting in 1980. It’s also more of the usual reasoning that you get from spineless liberals. More on that further down in the post.

Two pathologically-damaged choices for president.

Two pathologically-damaged choices for president.

I don’t run around touting faux socialists for president like some of my friends did prior to Bernie Sanders going in the tank for Mrs. Clinton. I’m also clear on Clinton’s neoliberal policies designed to further dash the hopes of working class people across the U.S., something that so-called working class advocates from Maine that I’ve written about on this blog seem to have missed. Democrats will be Democrats, however.

Oh, and do I need to do the usual kabuki dance and list all the Republican’s political peccadilloes? They should be fairly obvious, but then again, given the drivel I’m reading about “Hillary must win, no matter what,” I’m not so sure.

Hillary Clinton has long been seen as the heir apparent to an ineffective, two-term president. Mr. Hope and Change has delivered little and dashed any hopes thinking people may have had about America. What passed for change was negligible at best. Continue reading