The Jackass Party – Phil Farruggio

July 29th, 2006
Op Ed Commentary
The Jackass Party
I mean, really, how much can any intelligent, well read person take? Sometimes, watching the Congress on C-span, I want to just take my shoe off and throw it at the set! The Republicans, well, they have lost all credibility as a so called party. Like lemmings, they march out and drop off the cliff of reason. On nearly every major issue, these jokers, dressed seemingly more elegantly than their colleagues on the other side of the aisle, amaze me with their lack of perspective. Meanwhile, as in the old Michael Jordan Nike commercial, the Jackass party wants to ” Be like….”.
Last time I looked, our country is occupying another sovereign nation. We illegally invaded and destroyed Iraq, opened the door to every terrorist organization and cadre in the region, made enemies of 90% of the world’s population, while depleting our national treasury to the tune of $400 billion in tax dollars! Our nation has the worst health insurance system in the western world. Gasoline prices are skyrocketing while US oil companies receive record profits. Job
s are outsourced to cheap labor regions while companies downsize with massive layoffs. The housing bubble, predicted two years ago by this writer, is now upon us. Recession ( possibly a depression, is around the corner. And the Jackass party, where are they? What are they standing up for? Lets see. Oh yeah, immigration reform- the code word to allow more cheap labor into our country. Even Bush and company support that. Then we have gay marriage. Another ” life and death” issue.
Go to any trailer park or low or moderate income housing development throughout America. That is where the Jackass party has been rejected. You see, instead of worrying about those so called swing voters, the Jackass party should be concentrating on the over 50% of eligible voters who do not vote! Why don’t they vote? Ask them. ” There’s no difference. What does it matter who gets in? They’re all the same…. politicians!” These folks are correct. It does not matter anymore. It hasn’t for a long time. Thirty years ago, when the Jackass party was in power, and Ralph Nader was railing for higher mandated miles per gallon on cars ( Clean Air Fuel Efficiency Standards), where was the Jackass party? Did they create legislation insuring that we now would be getting 40 and 50 mpg? On health care, decades ago it was a fact that France and most of Western Europe and Scandinavia had some form of socialized medicine. Their
citizens were paying peanuts compared to what Americans were shelling out for health care. Decades ago! Where was the Jackass party to demand that our nation extend Medicare to cover all of us? No free ride. Everyone would and should pay in according to earnings. A plausible and affordable system. Not to the Jackass party. They had too much insurance and pharmaceutical industry money going into their coffers. End of that discussion.
We have a mess in the Middle East. As predicted by many scholars and students of history, the invasion of Iraq opened up a hornet’s nest of troubles. More than that, it was an illegal and immoral action! We were lied to! Not just by Bush and Cheney, but by their whole crew of cronies and underlings. The Downing Street Minutes, released on year ago, confirm that these people knew Iraq posed absolutely no threat to American security. That, my friends, is treasonous. That translates into war crimes and crimes against humanity. Where are the Jackasses? Factoring out a small and dedicated group of them in the House of Representatives, not one US Senator has called for an inquiry into impeachment. Not even Feingold, who was left standing on the limb when he even asked for the much milder action of censure. Not a one! They have the nerve to posture for those swing voters by asking for a “timetable for withdrawal”. Last time I looked, when you invade and destroy someone’s house, illega
lly and immorally, you don’t hang around afterwards. No, you get out, and quick! One wonders: what if Kerry’s kids, or Chelsea Clinton, or Howard Dean’s kids were marching through that 120 degree desert black hole, would their parents ask about a timetable? What the Jackass party should have done, and should do now, is hold press conferences. They should assemble all their numbers and demand an inquiry into the impeachment of Bush and Cheney, and a special prosecutor to investigate Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Bolton, and all the others who may have lied and misled the American public into this phony war on Iraq. Then the Jackass party should encourage all the thousands of Democratic clubs throughout America to get their members regularly on the street corners and demand action. Nothing less will do.
Finally ( for now), here’s two economic issues that the Jackass party can get behind, especially to influence the 50% who do not vote. First off, tax the rich. Simply put, call for a surtax on incomes over one million per year, while lowering the rates on everyone else. Raise the corporate tax rates to what they were 20 or 30 years ago. Institute a windfall profits tax on the oil industry. Close the offshore tax loopholes. Tax the profits on US companies that manufacture offshore.
Secondly, institute Robert Reich’s Payroll Tax Forgiveness Plan. Former Clinton Secretary of Labor Reich says ‘ k
eep it simple stupid ‘. His plan exempts all employee and employer payroll tax contributions on the first $ 20,000 of wages. That translates into savings of around $ 1300 to $ 1400 per year for the worker and the employer. I would do it for all employees, but limit how many times the company can be forgiven its contribution. Regardless, this will stimulate the economy by giving everyone extra money, tax free, to use. Think of the opportunities here. Money to save for a down payment on a home or car. Money to invest. Small businesses could use the savings to improve their infrastructure, give bonuses to good workers, or take out company health insurance. Whatever. Reich states that if we re-institute the Estate Tax ( with its million or two million dollar ceiling), our treasury could afford his Payroll Tax Forgiveness Plan. Yet, why did the Jackass party not get behind his plan?
There is an election cycle approaching. Methinks I will stand my ground this time. No more panic attacks about ‘ save us from the Neo Cons ‘. This time, I will challenge the Jackass party candidate on 3 or 4 key issues. If I hear a true progressive stance from that candidate, then he or she has my vote. If not, as in the Senate race here in Florida, I go with an independent candidate who speaks for my concerns. Or I write in Frances the mule. He’s probably a better jackass anyway!
Philip A Farruggio is a published colum
nist ( on many sites, including Op Ed News and After Downing Street .org ), small businessman, activist organizer and part time radio talk show host. He can be reached at PAF1222@bellsouth.net

Prisoners of War – by Phil Farruggio

July 21, 2006
Prisoners of War
How many pundits, how many regular nine to five Americans love to refer to “The Founding Fathers”? Yet, the very foundation of our American Revolution was massive citizen protest. Patrick Henry, Thomas Paine, Madison, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams and countless others were standing up and speaking out to their government in England. Led by its King, George ( no pun intended), it had become out of touch, unfair, unjust and non inclusive of its colonists. The aforementioned men were, in fact, citizens of the Crown, not rebels or illegals or interlopers. They felt it was their inherent right, their patriotic duty, to speak out against injustice and demand equal rights. Men (and women) of principle would write, orate and, most importantly, stand on street corners and town squares in protest.
After WW 2 America lost its soul. It regained it a bit during the Vietnam conflict, cunningly labeled a “War”. Truman started that scam with the term “Police Action” in Korea, using young American’s blood and guts as an endgame of foreign policy. During the so called “Korea
n War”, there were not many street protests as with Vietnam. After all, the early 50’s were the height of McCarthyism, when our media, our schools and our leaders narcotized us with the “Domino Theory” of the spreading evil of Communism. They compared it to a plague which could float through the ethers as easily as the flu. Americans were hypnotized by fear, just as the Germans were under Hitler’s mesmerizing rhetorical warnings of a “Bolshevik Jewish conspiracy”. Yet, during Vietnam, something strange occurred. Originally, it was the longhairs and so called radicals who took to the streets in protest. Then, it was college students, some as straight as their parents, who joined in. Finally, by 1970, after the Kent State shootings, when young National Guard troops shot at … well, young college kids, and four lay dead, things accelerated. My old man, a Goldwater and Nixon Republican, stood up during our Thanksgiving dinner, faced his relatives, and stated: “Before I let them come and send my boys to Vietnam, I’m gonna personally drive them to Canada!”
Yes, there was a military draft in 1970, and that did force guys like my father to make choices, and quickly. People were dying over there! Well, today, there is this Iraq thing, and people are dying over there! Back home in Washington, people are lying to us over here! The piling of corruption and half truths and deviousness could reach the heavens,
for goodness sakes. Our tax dollars are being funneled into an abyss, whereupon a select handful, in Eisenhower’s language the Military Industrial Complex (and high ticket presidential donors) are making money like …. well…. bandits! Meanwhile, our leaders allow
a) torture at will,
b) spying on anyone they choose,
c) gasoline prices to skyrocket,
d) wages to drop,
e) jobs outsourced,
f) borders opened for cheaper labor,
and on and on.
Yet, throughout the towns and cities of this great nation, silence. Silence! To those who see through this facade, lots and lots of venting and frustration behind closed doors to loved ones, friends and colleagues; nothing more. That’s it. Finito. Here and there, every so often, groups will mobilize and hold what I call “Media event protests”. And Cheney and his lapdog Bush sit back and chuckle a bit. They know its window dressing. They know it will accomplish little or nothing. They know what real concerted protest did to Johnson and to Nixon during Vietnam, when tens of thousands would and march and shout “….how many kids did you kill today?” on a regular basis. The media in those days had more cajones . They covered the daily toll of blood and gore from Vietnam in great detail. We watched, each evening on the news, our young kids wounded and dying in those rice paddies. It truly did make a difference. It truly did rally John and Joan Q Public to finally do something about it. You know what? That war, that Vietnam thing, was a moneymaker just as this one is. The fat cats and corporate honchos were making billions off of it. Without the outcry of millions of Americans, the politicians in Congress would have continued to turn a blind eye, and allowed it to continue for years. Years!
Hundreds of billions of our hard earned tax dollars are being spent on something that this current crew has no intention of stopping. Why should they? The public, in general, is silent. This writer stood on the street corner of his town for 22 months straight, each and every Tuesday afternoon during rush hour. With the exception of 15 or 20 kindred souls, in an area of over 100,000 population, no one would stop, park and join us for even 10 minutes! When the recession hits in a year or so, and it becomes a depression, then those Soccer Moms and Nascar Dads and retirees will finally get it. It may be too late by then. Too late.
“He who waits for others to fight his battles usually becomes a prisoner of war.”
Philip A. Farruggio is a writer, small businessman, p/t radio talk show host, and activist. he can be reached at paf1222@bellsouth.net

Flag Day – By Phil Restino

Veterans For Peace, Inc.
Central Florida / Central Florida East
P.O. Box 9012, Daytona Beach, FL 32120-9012
Ph: (386) 255-7441; Fax: (386) 255-7442
www.cflveteransforpeace.org
“To stand in silence when they should be protesting makes cowards out of men.” – President Abraham Lincoln
Flag Day – June 14, 2006
It’s June 14, 2006 and the leader of the United States Senate, Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, once again is hard at work trying to get the Senate to amend the U.S. Constitution so as to prohibit “flag burning”. This after the U.S. Senate is wrapping up the very “important” work of debating whether or not our country’s 200+ year Constitution should be amended to prohibit gay Americans from marrying. Exactly one year ago today, on Flag Day 2005 another senator, Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, introduced a resolution (S.Res.171) referred to the Armed Services Committee chaired by Senator John Warner of Virginia, which would require the President submit to Congress a time frame for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Since then only one senator, S
enator Barbara Boxer of California, has signed onto the resolution while 789 U.S. troops have been killed in action, 5,283 more have been wounded in action … none of them the son or daughter of any of the 535 members of the United States Congress … and literally tens of thousands of innocent civilians have been killed, maimed and wounded in Iraq.
Also a year ago, on June 16, 2005, Congressman Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii introduced a resolution (H.J.Res.55) referred to both the Armed Services Committee chaired by Congressman Duncan Hunter of California and the International Relations Committee chaired by Congressman Henry Hyde of Illinois, which would require that the President develop and implement a plan for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Five months later on November 17, 2005, Congressman John Murtha of Pennsylvania introduced a resolution (H.J.Res.73) to those same committees, which calls for the redeployment of U.S. troops out of Iraq and for the pursuit of security and stability in Iraq through diplomacy. Congressman Murtha, a decorated Marine combat veteran of both the Korean and Vietnam wars and known widely as the “military’s best friend in congress”, was quickly labeled as non-supportive of the troops by the likes of Vice President Dick Cheney. The attacks on Murtha continued until Murtha reminded the American public that Cheney sought out and received 5 military draft deferments during the
Vietnam War while he and others were fighting in Vietnam. On December 6, 2005, Congressman Abercrombie filed discharge petition H.Res.543 providing for the consideration of H.J.Res.55 by the full House, as long as 218 Representatives sign on to it. To date it has 124 signatures.
Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives approved an additional $66 billion to continue to fund the war on Iraq, which is over 3 years old now and has cost the U.S. taxpayers $350 billion and U.S. military families the lives of 2,500 of their loved ones. Currently the U.S. taxpayers are spending $8+ billion per month on the war on Iraq. For many on the receiving end of that money, the defense contractors and their stockholders, an ongoing war is good for business … much like it was for the war in Vietnam, which finally came to an end when Congress stopped funding that war. Congress didn’t pass that legislation until enough of the American voters got out into the streets and publicly called for an end to the war. That said, a resolution (H.R.4232) introduced by Congressman James McGovern of Massachusetts on November 4, 2005, would prohibit the use of funds to deploy U.S. Armed Forces to Iraq. Like the other legislation already mentioned, the Armed Services and International Relations committees have done nothing with H.R.4232.
Concerned about Iraq? Want to do something about it? To speak with your Senator and
/or Representative in Congress, you can call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask for him or her by name. To exercise your First Amendment right (civic duty?) to “peaceably assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances”, you can join the other patriots in your city or town for an hour or two each week in its street corner protests.
Note: Restino is co-chair and a founding member of the Central Florida chapter of Veterans For Peace and is a member of the Florida chapter of Military Families Speak Out.