Monthly Archives: August 2016

Guest Column: End Collective Bargaining for Public Employees

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The Public Employment Relations Act (PERA) a major cause of underfunded pension systems and an obstacle to solutions

Steve_HarryFull article at Steve Harry’s site, you may have to go to the directory to locate page. (Title of article: “End collective bargaining for public employees”.)

The Public Employment Relations Act (PERA) is the state law that requires local governments and public schools in Michigan to engage in collective bargaining. It never was a good idea, but recently it has been seen – by me, at least – as a major cause of underfunded pension systems and an obstacle to solutions.

I’ve posted several stories here about underfunded pension and retiree heath care systems. The most recent said Lansing’s debt amounts to $16,000 per household and that pension systems in 80 of Michigan’s 100 largest cities are underfunded.

The National Labor Relations Act was passed and signed into law by President Roosevelt in 1935. It does not apply to government employers:

The term “employer” . . .  shall not include the United States or any wholly owned Government corporation, or any Federal Reserve Bank, or any State or political subdivision thereof . . .

Collective bargaining for public sector employees did not come to Michigan until 1965:

In the 1964 election, President Lyndon Johnson won in a landslide, and his coattails helped many other Democratic candidates. Michigan Democrats won large majorities in both houses of the state legislature in the 1964 election, their first majorities in either chamber since 1937-1938, and enactment of a prounion public sector bargaining law was one consequence of those majorities. On July 23, 1965, Governor George Romney, a liberal Republican, signed the Public Employment Relations Act (PERA), 1965 PA 379. . . PERA granted bargaining rights to public sector employees [and] defined and prohibited unfair labor practices (ULPs) . . . (source, pages 107-108)

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Brian’s Column: Update on The Truman Prophecy (2016)

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‘Trumanism’ über alles?

Truman_Front_NewIt’s been a few months now since the publication of The Truman Prophecy, my novel envisioning three stages of human evolution for reaching a benevolent New Paradigm (Billion+ Points of Light) society of peace, freedom, and abundance for individuals, planetwide:

  1. Toto (Truth) Phase—integrated truth salients vs. high-crime assaults of the Men of the Power Sickness… exposing lies at root of the assaults.
  2. Dorothy (Justice) Phase—1) recovering American First Principles’ grand juries to end government criminality/corruption, 2) political program of http://Snowden-Manning.org.
  3. Truman (Liberty) Phase—individual self-realization and formal declaration as beings of independent consciousness (Indiecons),[1] replacing rogue coercive government with a First Principles'[2] freedom-of-choice system.

In reality, the three phases proceed together synergistically. They form the socio-spiritual philosophy/movement of Trumanism. Which is a whole new way of looking at our world as human consciousness evolves… once and for all as deeply independent and conceptual. Another series of terms conveying the earthy human essence of the belief system—i.e. corresponding to truth, justice, and liberty—is:

  • Carrey1Wake: to see and assert the truth
  • Stand: for justice based on the truth
  • Walk: declare and live as an Independent

Each of the steps is vital, and each takes intellectual and moral courage. The singular image and icon defining this movement is the final scene in the movie, The Truman Show (1998), when the protagonist Truman Burbank declares himself as a human being of independent conceptual consciousness who will no longer accept his gilded confinement—physical or psychological. He wakes up and walks out… into the fresh air of liberty.

And so shall we.

This column means to give a preliminary status report. Mainly regarding the book (inasmuch as the idea of Trumanism as a philosophy is of quite recent vintage).  Here’s what I can tell you: Continue reading →

Movie Review: Shooter (2007)

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“The Patriot” and “Enemy of the State”
meet Dick Cheney on the grassy glacier (9/10)

ShooterShooter is the ultimate thrilling and inspiring movie for people seeking an end to the depredations of “the Cartel.”  It’s V for Vendetta applied to the real-life cabal in the White House today.  Instead of VP Dick Cheney, “the Conglomerate’s” operational point man for murder and mayhem is a US Senator from Montana (played with a pure dictatorial sliminess by Ned Beatty).

Great timing now that the Blackwater corporate army has been running amok in Iraq and generally showing the real purpose of that conflagration.  As Alan Greenspan states in his recent tome, The Age of Turbulence, it is all about oil, silly! More precisely, it’s about power: seizing revenue from oil and other natural resources for one’s crony-capitalist sleazeballs… all the while chillingly wrapping oneself in the Flag (and/or the Cross).

In Shooter, the Conglomerate’s (C’s) farflung contractor army—as well as coopted US military forces—inflict horrific damage on local populations in their worldwide operations. In particular, C’s merchants of death have wiped out a village in Africa that hesitated to make way for an oil facility.  In the opening scene Marine sniper Bob Lee Swagger (Mark Wahlberg) and his spotter shoot several “bad guys” from a mountain nearly a mile away. Swagger does not know the connection between these targets and the C’s operations. Continue reading →

Guest Column: Only One Libertarian Position on Immigration

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There Is Only One Libertarian Position on Immigration
by Jacob G. Hornberger, August 25, 2015 [excerpted from column 8/25/15]

HornbergerEditor’s Note: This is a refreshing principled articulation of the libertarian nonaggression principle applied to national borders. And I agree with it in principle. To use an analogy, forced government retirement programs e.g. Social Security—just as closed borders—are a violation of the nonaggression principle, and must be stopped; the real question in both cases is how. IMHO, Jacob underrates the cultural inundation factor, especially wrt public property such as schools and roads. Also, nobody is sanctioning government-mandated immigration—such as the US creating 10s of thousands of refugees by its support of the Greater Israel Project, then foisting them en masse on American communities.

There is a common perception that there are two alternative libertarian positions on immigration: government-controlled borders and open borders.

Nothing could be further from the truth. There is only one libertarian position on immigration, and that position is open immigration or open borders.

After all, government-controlled borders and open borders are opposite positions. How could opposite positions on immigration both be consistent with libertarianism? That’s just not possible. One is consistent with libertarian principles and the other isn’t. If a position that purports to be libertarian isn’t consistent with libertarian principles, then as Ayn Rand would have said, “Check your premises.”

Why do many libertarians believe in government-controlled borders and oppose open borders?

For the same reason that there are many libertarians who believe in the national-security state, an enormous standing army, and selective foreign interventionism: they came into the libertarian movement as conservatives, owing primarily to an attraction to libertarian free-market economic principles, but unfortunately have been unable to let go of their conservative views on immigration (as well, for some, on foreign policy and other issues). Continue reading →

Brian’s Column: American Gandhi: Doreen Hendrickson

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The good word from Doreen’s husband Pete is that she’s on home tether
The epochal word is their message of truth and peace is about to break thru

IRS on TrialLet’s all liberty lovers share in Pete Hendrickson’s elation that his dear wife Doreen has now been released from federal prison where she was serving an 18-month sentence for refusing to commit perjury under orders of a federal judge. Yes, you read that correctly. The facts are plain and well presented in the video on the right. →

Doreen is now in home confinement… with the proviso that within 60 days she swear to a lie that her economically-gainful activities in 2002 and 2003 (and Pete’s) were taxable activities, rather than activities of common right in which the government has no ownership interest. [The statements have been written by the government and Doreen is meant to swear them as being her own words.] Almost certainly, at the end of 60 days, Doreen will again refuse to commit perjury[1]… “and THEN… and THEN… uh uh… and then along came Jones…” as the song goes.

Along Comes the Great Spirit of Mohandas Gandhi and Rosa Parks

Make no mistake about it, the federales have tied themselves up in a Gordian Knot… through stupidity, arrogance, and just plain meanness. What is Rogue Judge #2 going to do when Doreen continues to refuse to yield to Rogue Judge #1’s unlawful command? Send our hero back to the West Virginia federal compound for life?  Even in the toxic, dumbed-down, lackey-media country we’ve become, Doreen’s struggle and truth will break through.[2] She will have become an insuperable moral indictment of the rotted system for all to see, which system will unravel as the British Empire in India and racial supremacists of the Old South. Continue reading →

Book Review: Moral Politics

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How liberals and conservatives think
by George Lakoff
1996, 2002 , University of Chicago Press , 426 pages

MoralPoliticsMoral Politics, a book whose message is considered prophetic, is the most recent pick of the book discussion group I belong to. In our previous gathering we discussed Fred Singer’s remarkable Unstoppable Global Warming.  The majority then seemed to revel in that what I regard as that book’s weird endorsement of carbonofilia (love of choking on automobile fumes and smokestack emissions).

These are libertarians who, I’m sure for the most part, like to firmly plant their political value-judgments on reason and science.  WHAT IS THE DEAL?  Well, Moral Politics provides a clue; in fact it reveals an entire roomful of clues. Continue reading →

Movie Review: Evan Almighty (2007)

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Evan Almighty ____________ 6/10
Engaging satirical flick for the whole family

Evan_AlmightyNo, Evan Almighty is not a contender for the Oscars, much less a serious threat to unseat political satire-comedy classics such as Wag the Dog, American Dreamz, or Man of the Year.  But it’s a reasonably intelligent family-friendly spoof of power politics and an extremely funny deflation of the socially ambitious political personality.

Evan Baxter (Steve Carell) is one such ambitious, though well-meaning, poli-person. The film begins with Evan leveraging his TV news persona to win a race for the United States Congress.  It’s always been his dream to reach this pinnacle of public service, and he’s also firmly attached to the frills of the job: a monster trophy home in the hills of Virginia, first-class office and staff, chauffeur and special parking privileges.

His first day on the job, neighboring Congressman Chuck Long (John Goodman), who has been in office for a long time, approaches Baxter to pre-endorse Long’s self-serving land-use bill.  Long feels Baxter’s notoriety and his cultivated anchor-man good looks—we see Baxter spending 10 minutes over the sink shaving and removing his nose hairs—will give Long the credibility he needs to push the bill through. Continue reading →