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2010 Campaign

 

One more photo of the candidate -- photo op session.
I am on the left and my brother Sam is on the right, circa March 1949.

I have not changed most of these website pages since my 2008 run for Congress. The information is still true. Read it and judge for yourself. My original website was finished around April 2008, before the economic meltdown. Here is a link to my 2008 analysis of the economic meltdown. Judge for yourself whether I was correct: LINK

Nothing has really changed. The military-industrial-governmental complex still accounts for approximately one Trillion of our government’s approximately three Trillion-dollar budget and it still sucks the life out of our country. We have accepted this as “the new normal”. Obama was the peace candidate, yet the stupid military spending continues: a new fleet of shallow-water nuclear subs “ to combat terrorism” (four guys in a rubber dingy) and a new generation of carbon-fiber fly-by-wire stealth fighters to chase guys in caves. We could have gotten this done with a few rubber dingys and some Vietnam-era prop planes. No one questions throwing away our national wealth in the name of the warfare state. To do so would be un-American.

July 2010, Baghdad. V.P. Joe Biden, Senator Joe Liberman and John McCain, all piranhas for the national security state -- Biden and Liberman Israel-Firsters, McCain a war lover all the way. Biden is a sharp dresser with his faux hair and "the look" glasses -- he gets all the chicks. Meanwhile the Iraqi, Iranian and Afghani peoples have been bombed, embargoed, hunted, starved, tortured, murdered and their countries destroyed by these aristocrats, empowered by you and I.

What we do question is any expenditure that might actually help someone, like expenditures for healthcare. The fake conservatives tripped all over themselves to oppose healthcare while they bowed down to the national security state and its mega-wasteful expenditures. I opposed the healthcare bill, because it further bloats the governmental bureaucracy, rewards the insurance company obstructionist-middlemen and takes money from one unwilling group of taxpayers, but I am primarily opposed because it is unsustainable. Passing laws does nothing if we do not have the long-term wealth to fund the system the law creates.

We should work toward healthcare for everyone. A robust economy is the best long-term guarantor of healthcare. This means new manufacturing, which is achieved by education, basic research and infrastructure -- not by military domination and financial gimmicks. Increasing our output of physicians, nurses and nurse practitioners and allowing more generic drugs would dramatically improve things, but no, we just ramped up the present system, to further enrich the huge insurance and drug companies. And the government (you and I) are going to pay for it.

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The other large piece of stupidity in the past couple years is the financial bailout. We deregulated the financial and insurance industries and then, when the market was going to discipline (regulate) them for their greed and recklessness (through bankruptcy), we bailed them out, thereby teaching them an important lesson -- that it is OK to be reckless and greedy. Meanwhile, we refused to bail out homeowners. The financial industry learned that they can pretty much do anything and they will be bailed out. In this respect, they are now treated like the aristocracy of our military-industrial-governmental complex -- our wasteful and economically-toxic warfare state. The financial industry finances and empowers the military-industrial-gov. complex. Blood brothers.

Another recent phenomenon is the Tea Party movement, which condemns a healthcare plan which costs 100 Billion a year, but cannot find the courage to condemn bloated and bizarre military-security expenditures of literally 10x that amount (1 Trillion) per year. People are afraid to discuss this. The director of the CIA recently stated that there are no more than 100 hardcore Al Quaida members in Afghanistan. Our 16 intelligence organizations and their civilian subcontractors have 850,000 employees with top-security clearances -- 8,500 security-clearanced geeks for every Al Quaida bad boy. Could we be just a little more efficient? And this does not count our military personel. Is this insanity or what?

Ronald Reagan espoused "economic democracy" which allowed big U.S. corporations to export their manufacturing to third world countries and not replace this lost manufacturing. Since 1946, U.S. manufacturing jobs as a percentage of all jobs has shrunk from 39% to 9%, and a lot of this 9% is military and media, both toxic products. Our politicians, particularly the so-called "conservative" Republicans, didn't bother to try to replace lost manufacturing. Why should they, because they were well-connected to the financial industry and the weapons industries which are doing very well, thank you, due to our endless wars and the financial industry bailout. If you don't have a decent job or the prospect of one, join the military or one of our 16 intelligence bureaurcracies, or the federal government. These guys are hiring and paying well. It is called "statism". They are sucking off those few of us who are still working in some sort of a productive job.

The reason we are screwed economically is that we no longer have a manufacturing sector with good jobs. We are throwing out the illegal aliens so we can have their crappy jobs -- pointing a leaf blower, sweeping the sidewalk, working in a car wash. No benefits, no vacations, no future. We threw away our manufacturing and replaced it with government jobs and financial-industry shell-game ponzi scheme jobs. The conservative Republicans are well connected to the financial and defense industries, so they are financially set. The high-level Democrats only wish they were.

In closing, it is a relief to be free of the last Bush (forgot him already?) who increased our national debt from 5 Trillion to 10 Trillion and set the stage for the present further increase to 11.4 Trillion cuz his ponzi scheme of mortgage cheap money caused a financial collapse and reduced the present tax income of the federal govt. Bush ignored new manufacturing as a method to bring wealth to this country. Now we have a stimulus plan that works, but it does not stimulate demand for U.S products created by high-paying manufacturing jobs, because those jobs are gone. I suppose we are stimulated to get our car washed more often or get another cup of Starbucks coffee. If you want to vote your conscience, vote for me. I hope you can see that I am serious about changing things. I will do the job. Thank you. Michael L. Shoen