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In this episode, I talk a little about the current economy and comment on how the mess today is actually the result of economic and trade policies that began with Reagan.
I also talk about job interviews that I had at two different medical device companies. It is amazing how obvious it was that they didn’t want to hire an American Citizen for the position.
I introduce two books that cover the union WashTech. The first book is “The Uprising: An Unauthorized Tour of the Populist Revolt Scaring Wall Street and Washington” by David Sirota. An excerpt of this book is available at the WashTech site. WashTech is discussed in the chapter “Dilberts of the World, Unite!”. I have an interview in the book near the end of that same chapter.
The second book is titled “Love the Work, Hate the Job: Why America’s Best Workers Are Unhappier Than Ever” by David Kusnet. An excerpt of this book is available at the WashTech site. This book not only describes WashTech’s history in great detail, it also describes Boeing’s history along with the union SPEEA. It also describes how Boeing changed from a company caring about quality to a company caring more about profit.
Also included in this episode are music and audio clips from the game Portal by Valve Software.
There is confusion in Washington State over what is different between the Caucus and the Primary, and which you should care about. It is also different according to which Party you subscribe.
The short of it is:
If you are a Republican, both the Primary and the Caucus are important.
If you are a Democrat, ONLY THE CAUCUS is important as far as choosing delegates for your candidate of choice.
Since this year Washington State has both a Caucus and a Primary, the Parties have a choice of whether to select their delegates during the Primary, during the Caucus, or in some combination of the two.
The Democratic Party is choosing all of their delegates during the Caucus. This means that voting for a Democratic candidate on the Primary ballot accomplishes absolutely nothing. So, the message to Democrats is loud and clear: GO TO THE CAUCUS. However, do not completely ignore the Primary, because there are some local issues on the ballot where your vote does count.
The Republican Party is splitting there delegates between the Primary and the Caucus. 51% of their delegates will be chosen via the Primary, while 49% will be chosen at the Caucus. The message to Republicans is to DO BOTH. Going to the Caucus counts and voting for a Republican candidate on the Primary ballot counts.
The message that I would like to share with everyone is to Please Participate. It is more important now than ever to get involved in the political process. Share your concerns with others and get intelligent dialogues going. It is truly the heart of our democracy.
…or so says Shelly Burroughs in a voicemail left at my home today. Of course, being The Progressive Geek, with my intense distrust of our anti-American dysfunctional government, the first thing I did was to search the Internet for more information on this “highest honor” (as described in the voicemail) that supposedly congress thought I deserved. Almost instantly, I discovered that this so-called honor is a scam by Tom Cole and the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). It appears from my search on the web that hundreds, or more probably thousands of people are approached with this award for the purpose of collecting contributions and adding people to an “advisory committee” where you are forced to endure listening to a recording of Republican drivel regarding their agenda to stop Nancy Pelosi and those “bad liberals” from ruining small businesses. The price for this fake honor is several hundred dollars, paid to the NRCC.
Don’t get me wrong. I have no love for Nancy Pelosi and many of the Democrats who gave so many promises in 2006 and failed so miserably to keep any of them. My back is still bleeding from all the stab wounds. I am also much more concerned over how the Democrats are out to ruin American jobs, particularly hi-tech jobs, than over what they might do to “small businesses”. What I find so insulting is how Cole and the NRCC have stooped to an incredible low in trying to scam the Americans into forking over money to the Republican Party.
All I can say is: this should tell you what the Republican Party thinks of us American Citizens. They must think that we all believe that we won the International Lottery and that we have a million dollars coming from a business deal in Nigeria.
The online DFA poll results are in and Kucinich is on top with nearly 32% of the vote. Al Gore, who said that he is not going to run for President, came in second with nearly 25% of the vote. John Edwards is in 3rd place, solidly over 15%. Hillary is where she belongs, down in 5th place with only a little over 4% of the vote. Clearly this means the people (at least those with access to a computer and cared to vote at the DFA website) want a progressive candidate. They want us out of Iraq. They want us out of the unfair trade policies that our government has negotiated despite the will of the people over the last 25 years.
Kucinich’s second win? His resolution to impeach Dick Cheney has been approved in congress to go to the judicial committee. It is yet to be seen how far this goes, but it is tremendously good news for the people of this country who want to hold this administration accountable for all its fraudulent, unconstitutional actions from warrantless wiretapping and water-boarding to the lies that got us into the occupation of Iraq. If this resolution accomplishes nothing else, it would be worth its weight in gold if it will keep us out of yet another fraudulent war with another country, Iran.
Be sure to check out Dennis Kucinich’s latest book, “The Courage to Survive” and be sure to tell all of your friends to support Dennis Kucinich.
