Posts

Lies, lies, lies, Yeah

    I've heard many people say that we should dwell on the past and by the past, I'm speaking about GW Bush. The problem I have with not dwelling on the past is, as the old saying goes, dooming one's self to repeating the mistakes of the past.     With the presidential election coming up, people need to think about the presidency we got that was based on lies: In the end it was proven that Gore had ... won Florida and it was known at the time of the election that the head of the elections board worked on the Bush campaign. And then we got the war in Afghanistan (justifiable) and the war in Iraq (not justifiable) and if you believe Richard Clark, a war that was forced by Bush, based on untruths. So, in 2012, we have the republican candidates for the presidency campaigning on outright lies.     Worst than their falsehoods however is the fact that republican voters don't seem to be outraged by these falsehoods. Instead they seem to be going along for the

As boring as it may be, America will never recover fully without campaign finance reform

It is my fervent belief that the biggest problem facing America today has nothing to to with the economy, nor the environment.  It it not social issues, as most elected republicans and those who hope to be elected are telling us with the laws that they're passing in the states and the rhetoric they use on the campaign trail.  It's not education nor the fact that the United States of America has a broken educational system.  It's not even Wall Street or greedy CEOs who have stolen the futures, dreams and hopes of so many in this country.  Americans have to look more deeply into the source that allows all of these tragedies to occur. While all of these things do present severe problems that we, as a nation, must overcome before we can consider ourselves on the mend from the greatest recession since the Great Depression, the truth of the matter is that we need to look past them all to get to the root.  We have to stop arguing about oil subsidies versus those for clean energy

The Fallacy of Privatization: My Life As A Consultant

In the past few decades, the argument for privatization of practically every service normally run by public entities, such as cities, counties, states and even the federal government has been pushed by the Republican party.   The claim that private enterprises could do a better job for less expense has been a compelling one.   So compelling was this argument, that when presented to the public, there were few to question its logic, while the arguments of those few who did oppose things such as charter schools, privately run prisons and the construction of municipal facilities by private contractors fell upon deaf ears and were vocalized by mute politicians. Having worked in both the public and private sectors, I can honestly say that private contractors neither save more money, nor do they provide a better product in many cases.   Sometimes the shortcomings of contractors are only apparent in their failure to stay within a contracts budget.   At other times however, the failure are rela