Month: September 2021

Greg Snyder
July 15, 2018 ·
Ways our democracy could be improved:
1. Get money out of politics. Reverse Citizens United. Ban lobbying.
2. Get rid of the electoral college.
3. Put a capped, fixed rate on Congressional salaries and benefits. Benefits must match those of the general public they serve. Make it law that Congress must seek approval for any kind of pay raises and they must be based on actual work. Put term limits into place to prevent career politicians from occupying space in Washington DC for decades.
3. Tax the rich and businesses (corporations).
4. End all corporate subsidies. End defense subsidies.
5. Rebuild and adequately fund public education pre K up to grad school.
6. End the cap on taxing social security. Expand Social Security.
7. Medicare for all. Single payer.
8. Immediately convert to smart energy grid using only sustainable green energy sources.
9. Require all housing to convert to solar power.
10. Shut down existing oil and gas pipelines and require the companies that own them to clean up all spill sites with their own money.
11. Restore, repair, replace infrastructure across the board, across the country, water, sewer, roads, airports, railroads.
12. Build a national high speed, state-of-the-art rail system.
13. Make the internet a public utility owned and controlled by regions and metropolitan areas. Each town, city, metropolitan area or region would be responsible for building and maintaining its own system but tied into a whole system with financial assistance matching locally generated funds for initial construction. Broadband should be low or no cost and available to each and every citizen in the country. There should be no community, no matter how small, in the country that does not have access to adequate high speed broadband for every individual American. We should be the most wired country in the world, down to the last American.
14. Immediately remove all McConnell/Trump judges from service. Start to rebuild the judiciary the way it’s supposed to be done. Vet candidates carefully. Place only judges who are deemed qualified and experienced judges to the bench. Lifetime appointments should be able to reviewed and when judges lapse or breach ethical standards or simply do not function objectively and or within normal standards, there needs to be a system of review of their peers that should be put into place to remove judges that should be removed because they can no longer function the way they are supposed to function.
15. The United States Postal Service and the Veterans of this country need to be treated with respect by our elected officials. Restore adequate full funding for the VA and rescind the punitive measures that have been taken against the Post Office. Allow the Post Office to expand its capabilities to include check cashing (with minimal fees and/or interest). Honor promises made to our veterans and give them the benefits that they have put their lives on the line to receive.
16. Rescind all of the regressive measures made by Scott Pruitt while he was at the EPA. Fortify and make permanent the laws that protect Americans from pollution. Make laws that require polluters to clean up their pollution and prevent them from polluting in the first place. Restore the power of the EPA to make environmental law that keeps us safe and protects our health.
17. Adequately fund and restore the National Park System to its previous state. Make the Parks permanent and not something that can be chopped up, sold off, and lost forever.
18. Make the Endangered Species Act a permanent law that cannot be rescinded or rolled back.
19. Restore and make permanent the laws that protect consumers from predatory banking and business practices. Do not allow banking to be a high stakes investor sport. Bring back the full Dodd/Frank legislation. Beef it up where it needs to be beefed up. Bring back the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Bring back the Volker rule. Get rid of obscure but massive financial instruments like credit default swaps and collateralized debt obligations or remake them so they no longer can cause volatility.
20. We could start taking care of all Americans and stop being so insecure, selfish and paranoid. We have more than adequate wealth and resources to do this. Americans do not have to live in poverty, without the basics, living in the streets or their RVs. If we look beyond ourselves to the greater good, we can truly become an exceptional nation.
This is a very partial, initial wish list that I have of things we could easily do to vastly improve the quality of life in this country. But, it would take a lot of people who also think it’s possible and desirable and they they would have to make it happen through a lot of hard, focused work to get it done.
What would be on your “wishlist”?

Posted on August 25, 2019 Leave a comment on A few suggestions

Greg Snyder
July 6, 2018 ·

rMaybe the real reason senators and Trump are meeting with the Russians right now is to plan how the Russians will “help” with the midterm elections this year. More and more regular Americans are voting against Trump and the Republicans. So, the Republicans are depending on Russian support to sway the election with their incredibly effective hacking expertise. Of course, it helps the Russians target Americans who are vulnerable to their propaganda.

An update to this issue is that Moscow Mitch continues to refuse to allow any vote in the Senate to protect our election security systems. MM probably actually needs and is depending on Russian hacking support to win his re election. So he prevents anything from happening that could possibly interfere with hacking help from Russia.

Posted on August 25, 2019 Leave a comment

on Moscow Mitch loves Russian hacking

Greg Snyder
May 6, 2018 ·

Hi guys. Happy Sunday, day of rest. I hope you all are enjoying a pleasant, relaxing day off. I am.

If you are, please consider giving thanks to someone who is a dues paying member of a union. It was through the work of unions that you enjoy your days off. So, thanks are appropriate.

Unionized workers help to guarantee that all workers, whether they are dues paying members of unions or not, do not get exploited and have some time off and benefits.
So, surprise your union member friend or family member and thank him or her for her being in a union. It’s good for all of us. And it has helped you to be able to enjoy some days off and other work related things that most people never really even think about.

Posted on August 25, 2019 Leave a comment on Give thanks where they are due

I want to live in a country where everyone has free, fast, and publicly-owned broadband as it was originally intended to be. This would extend to each and every American, even those Americans who live farthest away in the most isolated and rural places in the country. Our tax dollars could pay for building the internet infrastructure that could cover the entire country. Broadband should be treated as a public utility, not a for-profit company owned by a corporation that increases its fees and creates new costs and fees and “tiers” as it wants, to increase its profits to suit the needs of its corporate executives and shareholders.

Greg Snyder
April 27, 2018 ·

Do you have any interest in giving anything back, paying anything forward for your success and achievements? If you are a retired baby boomer with time on your hands, how’s this for an idea about something that you could do with your time that would be constructive and beneficial for you and your community?  For those baby boomers who are old enough to be comfortably retired and have time available to do whatever they want to do, why not network and socialize with other people in your community who are also retired and have free time? You could work together to create social change and a better community for yourselves and a brighter future for your children and their children. Just a thought I wanted to throw out there. If you like this message, please feel free to act on it and share it. Thank you.

Posted on August 25, 2019 Leave a comment on In your leisure time

The Evils of American Capitalism according to Greg, 1.0.

The Stock Market is paid more attention than the workers who are actually doing the work upon which the market is based.

The emphasis in the economy is on paying investors and shareholders and corporate executives and making sure that they are all flush first and foremost and often at the expense of the security and well being of the workers who are actually doing the work upon which the economy is based.

Money controls Congress. Everything that is done is done because of money. It’s what I think of as old school politics. Money buys political action, favors, and preference. Those with the most money, the rich and large corporations, have engineered lawmaking in this country for most of its history.
That engineering has created economic disparities and inequality that have never been as large as they are today. This engineering has weakened labor in its ability to be its own advocate and work for maintaining adequate and fair wages, benefits, and working conditions for the workers who actually do the work upon which the economy and market are based.

Can the United States find a way to become a more equal and just economic system than it currently is? Will it ever be possible to flip from old school politics based on money controls Congress to a government that does not cater exclusively to those with the most money?

Why can’t we have both a strong stock market and a class of investors, shareholders, and corporate executives, AND a class of workers who do the work, ALL enjoy a good standard of living?

Would it be too much to ask those who have extreme levels of wealth to agree to allow those with less to have just a little bit more?

Most ordinary people, people who work for a living, just want to be able to live and have the basics: shelter, food, warmth, healthcare.

Don’t people who work deserve to have shelter, food, warmth, healthcare, and to not have to worry to excess about whether or not they will have enough money to pay for the basics?

When all the basics are assured, there is less anxiety and people can and do live modestly and don’t expect a lot more than that IF they feel secure.

For the rich, my questions would be: How much wealth is enough? Is there ever enough wealth? What is the goal of having wealth? Is the compulsion to amass an unknown but unlimited amount of wealth your end goal?
For what purpose?

If there can be a way to reconcile an economy that is skewed toward favoring the rich at the expense of everyone else and making sure that all citizens are able to enjoy a standard of living that allows them to live their lives without it being a struggle to survive, all of society would benefit. The economy would be stronger. And overall conditions for everyone and everything would be greatly improved.

It’s not rocket science. It’s a matter of fairness and a fair distribution and wise employment of the limited wealth and resources of any economy.

What do you think?

Greg Snyder
January 23, 2018 ·
What is National Security?
Is it having nuclear weapons that can annihilate whole cities?
Is it having covert troops and advisors that Americans don’t even know about in almost every country of the world “to protect our interests”.
Is it supporting and propping up despotic regimes that will in turn be our “allies”?
Is it funneling more and more of the discretionary federal budget into “the defense sector” of the economy for defense systems that we don’t need that takes money away from doing things here at home that are desperately needed, like funding education or rebuilding our infrastructure?
Is it putting money into research and development of sonar weapons systems that are used in the oceans which disorient, deafen, and kill an untold number of marine animals probably causes mass beachings of whales and other sea life?
Is it spending money lavishly on all of the items listed above and then not adequately funding troops when they come home after serving the country and are not given adequate pay and benefits and are neglected by Congress?
Are you afraid that some force, or some country is going to come over to the United States and somehow take it over and force Americans into submission?
The reason I ask that last question is because there is a lot of paranoia and weird thinking around the issue of National Security. A lot of misinformation and paranoid ideas are disseminated and there is a lot of insecurity about safety. But, what is real, and what is faulty thinking? Americans really need to take a long hard think about this because it’s a skeleton that they just have not dealt with honestly.
National Security has been used for a long time by ALL of our politicians to basically give the defense industry a blank check to do what it will. It has nothing to do with the actual security and safety of the country.
Americans need to wake up and question this practice and think in realistic terms about what true national security is and how it can be implemented in a responsible way that does not brake the bank or cause the country to go without the things it needs at the expense of having needless weapons systems that are wasteful, that squander resources, and that invite the rampant fraud that causes the Pentagon to “lose track of” and not account for trillions of dollars that just somehow disappear.

Posted on August 25, 2019 Leave a comment on What is safety and security?

Greg Snyder
January 16, 2018 ·

Do you remember when we never heard much about Congress passing a federal budget? It used to just happen quietly, without any fighting, or threats, or deadlock, or ultimatums, or continuing resolutions. Congress used to just do its job.

Last year I remember one of the sticking points was that Trump and the republicans wanted to increase the defense budget by $150 billion dollars originally and I think they finally settled on $80 billion. To do that, the republicans, if I remember correctly, wanted to cut funding for Meals on Wheels and take away the one hot meal that millions of poor shut-in, mostly elderly people depend on as their one hot meal of the day. Also, on the republican chopping block, if I remember correctly, were Planned Parenthood, Children’s Health Insurance Program, and the Veterans Affairs and budget. I can’t remember what deal the two parties arrived at last year to finally pass the budget after it had passed the deadline to do so on time. But, I do believe that Trump and the republicans did in fact get an increase of the defense budget of something like $80 billion dollars.

This year, the deadline for passing the federal budget is quickly approaching and the republicans want to increase the budget for defense yet again. Are we in an expensive war that I don’t know about? Democrats want DACA preserved. I don’t know how much money is needed to preserve DACA, it’s a promise that this country made to millions or people, dreamers and their families. I don’t know how much money it takes to preserve a promise. But, it’s part of the budget deliberations and rightfully so if that is the only way that it can be brought up for discussion in the tightly controlled republican process. Trump also still wants his insanity wall built and for American tax payers to foot that bill. So, that’s there too.

Tell me. Does this seem sane and normal to you? An increase in defense spending? Really? Why? The only thing I can come up with is that the republicans are trying to throw as many bones to their donors as they can, and the defense sector of the economy is a big sector of the economy that the republicans want to make sure and continue to cultivate so that those funds don’t dry up on them. It’s all about the money. That’s what’s important. It doesn’t matter that the product is death and destruction. Not at all.

Posted on August 25, 2019 Leave a comment on The high drama of the partisan budget battles

Greg Snyder
January 16, 2018 ·

I agree with you that the inspiration this country gives people, its aspiration to be home to all good citizens who want to achieve some kind of a dream, and the role model it has been in the past are what are and have made this country great in the past.

At this point in time all of those qualities and features are being degraded and morphed into something quite different by those in power. In this thread I have been thinking specifically about the people who make the decisions that the economy and to a large extent society then follow.

For example, the electric car was an experiment that showed wild promise to free us from carbon back in the 70s. The decision makers at GE, I believe, made the decision to kill the electric car before that idea took off.

The automotive industry then pushed the idea of bigger and bigger gas guzzlers, SUVs, Hummers, gigantic trucks that are really more like tanks than trucks and we have wound up with freeways and streets full of vehicles that use an obscene amount of gas.

Or, another example is in communications. This country used to have a diverse palette of independent small radio stations and back then it was much more exciting and a hell of a lot more substantial and satisfying to spend time listening to the radio.
But, the powers that make decision for all the rest of us slowly, over time, found ways to pretty much ban small, independent radio stations from the airways and what we have left are mostly these crass radio stations that blast the most recent manufactured “music” and more importantly, gobs and gobs of loud, obnoxious advertisements. And these radio stations nowadays are owned mostly by less than a dozen large media conglomerates whose only motive is profit.

The FCC, industry lobbyists, Congress are all complicit in the current state of crass, commercial, in-your-face radio in this country. They have achieved complete blandness and created something that is so boring and a waste of time that I just don’t turn the radio on anymore.

It’s these kind of decisions by the big decision makers that I have been wondering about lately. How can they make so many bad decisions? And for what reason? I just don’t get it.

Posted on August 25, 2019 Leave a comment on Big decisions, bad decisions

Greg Snyder

I don’t blame Trump voters at all for Trump being in office. They were a minority. Yes. there were a lot of them. And many of them have since realized that they fell for a con and threw their vote away on someone who did not deserve to ever even run for office and who is now very aggressively pursuing actions that hurt them and their families and the entire country. But I don’t think Trump voters deserve the blame and/or any further denunciation from the rest of us, the majority of us who did NOT vote for Trump because we knew he was absolutely unqualified and had too many mental health issues to ever be given the chance to run this country.

Let’s face it. There is a fatal lack of education in America. Trump voters are low-information voters. Or, they are a lot like Trump and have similar mental health issues so they are not able to see how unsuitable, inappropriate, and unacceptable he is and that he never should have even gotten the nomination in the first place. Sure, entertain the televisions watchers during the primaries to get some laughs along the campaign trail, but then exclude him from the final running as someone who may be an “entertainer” but is someone who definitely has no right to get near the WH except as maybe a guest. Sure, any billionaire loudmouth con man thief and bankruptcy king Russian bitch and money launderer can run for the office of president of the United States because, hey, we have a democracy, don’t we?

Posted onAugust 25, 2019 Leave a comment on Democracy at what cost? Or, any boy can run for president in the United States.