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Mr. Elected Representative, where were you?

By Randell A. Monaco
January 28, 2011


The influences that brought federal regulators to ignore clear warning signs that were obvious even to the inexperienced observer was easily recognized as unsustainable but what was the marketplace itself to do as they are rapidly seeing themselves priced out of the market?

When Wall Street is taking the complained of excessive risks, don’t we the public have the right to rely upon our elected representatives to protect that reliance in the integrity of the marketplace? I don’t accept that this finger pointing ends with regulators, absence of regulation or Wall Street bosses who need to be brought to justice and held accountable.

The entire elected government is charged with that responsibility, in real time, and I cannot accept that politicians now are going to use this as an issue to campaign upon and self promote after they played to the favors of Wall Street and Corporation including GE who invested in their re-elections.

Mr. President, do you hear me? If you continue to put your arms around the players who’ve participated and benefited, then reluctantly we must part ways. I personally will feel compelled to begin to do what is possible personally to educate those who have a right to expect and trust in you!
This is not a threat, it is a responsibility.

With the Smoke of Partisanship in their Eyes, Are Americans Being Taken for a Ride?

By Randell A. Monaco
January 24, 2011


Corporations who don’t need prior shareholder approval to spend corporate money are about to become the Goliaths of political influence independent of traditional political parties. As corporations begin to surreptitiously take center stage for the 2012 election campaign festivities it’s time to have a look at what this new reality is beginning to look like.

At the outset, let’s not accept out-of-hand the false idea that policies based on what’s good for corporations are good for America. Consider first that a corporate leader who increases profits by slashing his work force is thought to be successful. Well, that’s more or less what has happened in America recently: employment is way down, but profits are hitting new records. Who, exactly, considers this economic success?

Now compare the highly regulated economies in Japan and Germany that did a much better job than the United States at sustaining employment in the face of the 2008 financial crisis.

If revenues are generated through income and sales tax revenues how are the interests of nominally “American” corporations and the interests of the nation, which were never the same, aligned? The reference to “nominally American” corporations should be clarified here. To illustrate, columnist and Nobel Memorial Prize recipient Paul Krugman suggests, General Electric’s fortunes have very little to do with U.S. prosperity. He explains as an example that fewer than half its workers are based in the United States and less than half its revenues come from U.S. operations.

The corporate ability to influence and singularly direct our nation far surpasses the voice of an individual who now shares the Freedom of Speech with these economic powerhouses thanks to the recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Fair Election Commission which seems to have been in step with and strategically enabled over time by the Federalist Society and its membership.

Brook Jarvis noted in a November 2010 article that money really can buy votes! A report from Public Citizen found that, of 74 races in which a seat changed parties, 58 went to the candidate who had received the most money from outside groups empowered by Citizens United. Winning candidates received an average of $764,326 in outside money (not counting candidate or party funds), compared to $273,268 for losing candidates. In fact, some races were far more one-sided. In Illinois, for example, Republican Senate winner Mark Kirk benefited from $8 million more in outside money than his opponent, Alexander Giannoulias, who was targeted by funnels for corporate money such as American Crossroads, Crossoads GPS, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The challenge to understand why our politicians support policies that benefit corporations instead of citizens shouldn’t be as confusing to Americans as it may have been prior to this recent Supreme Court ruling. We don’t really need to keep wondering why big companies get bailed out, or why regulators look the other way at this point, do we?

The problem, as I see it, is that the there is a critical need for an increase in public investment and the real challenge is to overcome a thoroughly indoctrinated public perception that views government spending as a bad thing.

When we look at the aftermath of 2008 it is hard to disagree with Paul Krugman’s conclusion that we’re in a mess because we had a financial crisis - not because American companies have lost their ability to compete with foreign rivals.

The rhetoric of competitiveness for me seems to be the most frightening because of how easily it can be manipulated in the wrong direction for economic policy. Policies that lead to investment that’s actually about creating jobs now while promoting longer-term growth are easily susceptible to interpretations that we’ve been too tough on business, and that what America needs now is corporate tax cuts and across-the-board deregulation. There is no reason to believe that we should trust a market economy to regulate itself again. It is time to learn from our mistakes, don’t you think?

The state of discourse in our nation is pushing us further away from making a serious and much needed investment and spending increase on infrastructure and education. Election cycles in our nation seem to be getting in the way of making sustainable policy decisions that would meaningfully define a vision for our economic possibility. Worse, multi-national corporations and the ideology that brought economic disaster have been handed the keys to the bus with the smoke of partisanship in their eyes, Americans are being taken for a ride.

The Appearance in America - Brazen or Improper?

By Randell A. Monaco
January 22, 2011

A review of history beginning in 1980 would confirm that The Federalist Society has been in step with what has become the greatest assault on American freedom and prosperity in our lifetimes. More specifically, they have been the strategic enablers.

Understanding the full scope of that effort is beyond the scope of my purpose here as I want to focus on the brazen disregard of a long standing tenet of our legal profession and judiciary. I have long admired Chief Justice Earl Warren for many reasons. First is that it was by his hand that the commerce clause was used to facilitate the civil rights movement. Americans can be proud of our evolving to the point of having elected our first black president - something I personally am very proud to have been part of and witnessed. Also, as a nation we have taken for granted many of the freedoms and protections that were hard fought and won during the years of the Warren Court.

However, one of the reasons I admire Chief Justice Warren is because of the integrity that he brought to the high court. It may interest many to know that he was a Republican. He never campaigned for constituents; he terminated his campaign staffs rather than hire them once elected. He was ever vigilant to avoid the “appearance of impropriety” which is a concept lost on several current members of our United States Supreme Court.

There are three members of our current high court, including Chief Justice John Roberts, who belong to The Federalist Society. The decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission has now focused attention on Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas as it appears both justices have participated in political strategy sessions, perhaps while the case was pending, with corporate leaders whose political aims were advanced by that decision.

A reasonable person would question the impartiality of Justices Thomas and Scalia in the 5-4 ruling of the Citizens United case based on their attendance at political strategy meetings sponsored by a corporation that raises and spends millions to defeat Democrats and elect Republicans. Both Justices are mentioned in Koch Brothers materials which raises concern about their impartiality. Whether there is an actual conflict of interest is a matter for the Department of Justice to decide. But the appearance of impropriety is a matter of public perception which taints the credibility of the entire court in the public eye.

In fact Justice Thomas’ wife, founder of Liberty Central - a conservative group funded by anonymous donors who endorsed candidates in numerous 2010 races, publicly said she’d accept corporate money in light of the Citizen United decision. Just how this would appear to the American public seems an obvious, if not a brazen, disregard for the integrity of our high court.

Bob Edgar, president of Common Cause submitted documentation to our Justice Department citing appearances of Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Antonin Scalia at retreats sponsored by Koch Industries, a corporation run by two major Republican donors who helped finance some of the new GOP groups founded after the Citizens United ruling.

Isn’t the concept of avoiding the appearance of impropriety brazenly disregarded when a Supreme Court judge is “featured” at or attends closed door strategy meetings with political donors, corporate CEOs, candidates and political officials? Should they lend credibility and the prestige of their position to the political goals of those events? I would suggest that if the Honorable Chief Justice Earl Warren where here to rule on the appearance of impropriety the gavel would fall quickly against the reckless disregard for the integrity of our nation’s highest tribunal.

It is worth noting that in an interview with CNN, then House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said he believed Senate Minority Leader Mitchell McConnell and now House Majority Speaker John Boehner deliberately snubbed a November invitation to an intimate dinner with the President in his private residence at the White House. As it turned out, Republicans collectively backed out of the dinner with Obama saying they were too busy. Instead, McConnell and Boehner attended a dinner held by The Federalist Society that featured as its keynote speaker Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Also in attendance was Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Samuel Alito, Jr. and the son of Justice Scalia.

So, how does the schmoozing of our elected representatives that don’t have time to meet with our President to discuss jobs in America and their attending political speeches with the Federalist Society appear to the public - brazen or just improper?

Opinion’s, When They Mattered More Than Our Own

By Randell A. Monaco
January 17, 2011

I have a theory about younger generations which I suppose includes some Baby Boomers. As I recall growing up, we got up and out of the house early because if we sat around the house our folks would surely find more chores to fill our day. My mother’s family had a farm and father’s family a restaurant so work was a 7 day a week thing.

Most of us who were born in the early 50’s didn’t watch TV all day and sat down to eat our meals at the same time, together. We played baseball, football, basketball and hockey. Our parents didn’t organize or referee our games. We learned and agreed on our rules, organized our games and resolved our disputes so we could keep on playing together, always without the help of adults. You could take your bat and ball and go home but that isn’t what any of us wanted to do. Maybe it was going home to more chores? I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t want to play until dark or would rather go home before our parents expected us.

Our perceptions of the world were not handed to us by sitcoms like Three’s Company, Friends, or Two and a Half Men. We might have seen Lassie or Leave it to Beaver, but it would have been raining outside on that day.

I remember that my family bought my grandmother a color television while I was in the Marines and that I hadn’t actually watched a color television until after my discharge in 1972. As best as I can figure, that was about the time that television took over the role of the family baby sitter. This is not a researched opinion, just my recollection and some reflective observations, mind you.

When you think about how people behave and treat each other these days, particularly in the virtual spaces, I wonder how much the television, not just programming but television itself, changed the behavior of society.

I can tell you that we treated out neighbors better on the farm because we depended on each other’s equipment and man power come harvest time for example. In the restaurant, which was not alongside a freeway but in a city neighborhood where generations of families grew up (over 65 years to date), we treated our customers as though we wanted their business and that their satisfaction was our commitment. We didn’t tell them that - we showed them every opportunity we got.

As I recall, we wanted to know their opinions because they actually mattered to us more than our own opinions. In fact, we wanted to know why, because we were never of the opinion that we automatically knew more than our customers and neighbors. We wanted to know.

Does it matter whether you live in the city or on a farm? Not in my experiences. But it may now that television programming is the family baby sitter and politically divisive news casting, tells America what to think, how and who’s “right.” I just don’t know.

Vitriolic Corporatism in an Unconscious Society

By Randell A. Monaco, Esq.
January 10th, 2011




The abundance of guns has little to do with being responsible with one’s rhetoric. Mentally ill people or criminals will find guns when determined. More bad laws as shamefully and opportunistically announced by Rep. Robert Brady, will not solve the problems which most easily can be avoided by self censorship with our support and commitment to stand up to corporatism.

Here are some excerpts from an article published October 15, 2010, when Fox News was clearly put on notice, “Drop Glenn Beck or Have Blood on Your Hands.” “No one, left, right or center, wants to see another Oklahoma City. The next ‘assassin’ may succeed, and if so, there will be blood on many hands. The choice is yours. Please join my call to do the right thing in this regard and put Fox News at arm's length from your company by halting your advertising with them.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/15/tides-foundation-ceo-glenn-beck_n_764470.html

The solution is the same as when driving a car. Telling people not to drive cars 100 mph through a school zone is obvious, just as Beck’s vitriolic ranting that, not long ago, almost resulted in an incident that unfortunately did eventually occur just as Fox had been warned likely to happen.

What I’m driving at here is that words have consequences and, just as traffic laws are intended to reduce the risk, that doesn’t always avoid the inevitable collisions. Civil responsibility, hitting offenders in the pocketbook, does modify the behavior of most. In the case of Beck and Fox it truly is time to make them pay for speeding through our verbal school zones, if you will.

What our unconscious society is experiencing is a long list of people crushed by credit card debt, mortgages they shouldn’t have been granted, predatory lenders as well as sudden and catastrophic unemployment caused by outsourcing. Inadequate insurance runs the gamut – healthcare, employment, worker safety and more. How this ties into Fox, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Sarah Palin and the neoconservative dialogue responsible for the vitriolic tenor in America stems from the heart of corporatism.

American’s were allowed to prosper in the latter part of the 20th century through what might be described as, managed capitalism. Now, after an almost complete gradual dismantling, we have a government that serves the interests of corporations rather than those of its citizens. The transformation and dark logic that has engorged and empowered new oligarchy holds our economic and political life hostage to corporate interest and profits. The fact is that American’s just can’t grasp the grave implications for our future. This is particularly so when our U.S. Supreme Court continues to drive a federalist agenda, most recently with its ruling in the Citizens United case.

The furious pace of technological progress, the global doubling of the workforce in the early twenty-first century, the emergence of such giants as China and India with their huge and well-educated legions of workers have rewritten the playbook of this pernicious transformation into a corporate state.

The fact is that the rise of a corporate state undercuts our most fundamental rights as citizens, creating a society in which we are forced to subordinate our common welfare to the higher priority of corporate profit. The corporate state champions personal greed and self interest with disdain for public good. This mission is not possible without media vehicles such as Fox and their on camera henchmen. The tragedy in Arizona was a matter of time, predicted and warned against!

This assault on the middle class is under way and at full speed. Increasing the frustrations and making matters worse, anything that can be put on computer software – finance, architecture, and engineering is now outsourced to workers in countries at a fraction of the pay and no benefits. A college education is no longer a guarantee of a stable job. Worse the power of national, state and judicial authorities to respond has been neutralized through huge corporate campaign contributions, political action committees and armies of lobbyists. With the help of the neoconservative spin machine, the consent of the governed has become an empty phrase. The solution in my opinion begins with election campaign finance reform and restoration of the integrity of our elected government. In short, Fix Congress First.

Today, with the skewed vitriolic rhetoric of Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly and their Fox Friends along with a host of equally irresponsible shock jocks, including Rush Limbaugh, our mainstream less than fifth grade political debate does nothing to attempt to confront the advanced destruction of our democracy by the corporate state. To ignore these facts and the responsibility that mainstream media’s words have consequences, not just in Arizona but for our nation’s future is a dark realization of the transformations that have occurred in our seemingly unconscious society.

Delousing Anti-foreigner Patriotism

By Randell A. Monaco
January 09, 2011

How many times will the illegal immigration card be played as a political smoke screen before Americans begin to comprehend the shame of our anti-foreigner patriotism? Not long ago, while discussing new immigration policies being instituted in Arizona a friend commented that, “every time conservatives take too much out of the system they play the illegal alien card.” She was quick to point out that this same type of manipulative smokescreen had appeared in the mid 90’s following the George Bush administration.

Not long ago, in April of 2009, an email chain letter was making the rounds claiming that the amount of money taxpayers spend on illegal immigrants would be enough to "stimulate the economy.” The sources cited in the email letter attributed at least nine specific points to either the conservative Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) or the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), both of which call for more restrictive immigration laws.

A quick look at the more recent George W. Bush era doesn’t seem to support this reoccurring theory of illegal immigration economics. The three biggest hits to our economy occurred from 2001 to 2008. First was the Tax Cuts for the rich that reduced annual tax revenue available for public needs by 300 billion each year. Unfortunately, and with the blessing our current President making matters worse, these cuts were extended by capitulation in the final weeks of the 111th Congress.

The second economic hit to our economy results from the Bush/Cheney occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan which as of 2008 has cost $700 billion according to Congressional Research Service. This has been calculated to amount to $400 million a day by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz who also has estimated that the tab is well over $2 trillion when you add in rehabilitation for injured vets, replacement of military hardware and the value of things we could have produced (but didn’t) with that money during their administration.

The third economic hit is not from illegal immigration, it’s a result of banking deregulation. An ideological absurdity obviously lost on the likes of presidential hopeful Ron Paul who has claimed that banking regulation is not needed. Worse, the real tab on bank deregulation is not in yet as home prices are projected to continue to decline through 2011 and of even greater concern is the possibility that strategic defaults could let the bottom out of the entire market place. At this point, there should be little argument that deregulation of banking, not illegal immigration has brought our economy to its knees, causing the collapse of banks in addition to the steep decline in the value of most American homes along with a sharp rise in the cost of living in them.

Returning to the misleading illegal immigration smoke screen being repeated once again as our economy struggles on, a more objective and responsible perspective can be found in a 2007 report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office which examined 29 reports on state and local costs published over 15 years. Attempting to answer our concern about illegal immigration the CBO concluded that most of the estimates determined that illegal immigrants impose a net cost to state and local governments but "that impact is most likely modest." CBO said "no agreement exists as to the size of, or even the best way of measuring, that cost on a national level."

Author David Dorado Romo suggests, and many of us agree, that it’s time for America to start apologizing for it’s shameful immigration past and change a history that keeps repeating itself, over and over again. In his February 26th, 2006 editorial for the Los Angeles Times, Crossing the line, he confirms that the anti-immigrant fervor that continues to sweep across the U.S. is nothing new. He talks about decades of indignities put upon Mexican immigrants going back to 1904.

Mr. Romo correctly points out border crossers were not considered illegal in the US until 1917, the year that we entered World War I. Anti-foreigner patriotism and paranoia sweep the country fearing that Germans would launch bombing raids from Mexico. As a protest against Germany, Americans changed the name of frankfurters to hot dogs and sauerkraut to “liberty cabbage.”

Civic leaders and Anglo intellectuals such as Stanford Chancellor David Starr Jordan and Los Angeles Times owner Harry Chandler were influential in helping to draft the restrictive Immigration Act of 1924 which established the first U.S. Border Patrol to keep what racial hygienists saw as “genetically inferior aliens” out of the country.

For decades, border crossers were forced to endure the humiliation of a delousing process that included stripping naked, bathing with kerosene and vinegar, and sometimes being forced to shave hairy parts or be denied entry. Even into the 50’s, long after the threat of German bombs, Mexican laborers were being sprayed with DDT before being allowed entry into the U.S.

A few years ago several state governments, including California, apologized for the thousands of forced sterilizations carried out in the name of eugenics that had occurred into the 1970s.

If anything, this kind of treatment at the international checkpoints has exacerbated illegal border crossings and led to a Republican proposal for a 700-mile border fence. In the 1990’s, social and economic inequities in Mexico and other Latin American countries continued to push people north. Unable to find well-paid work at home or along the US-Mexican border, millions of immigrants risked capture by illegally crossing the border to find a better life. Their presence in this country has fueled an ever more strident anti-immigrant backlash which scuttled Congress’ attempt to pass comprehensive immigration reform in 2007. Since then, border enforcement has been stepped up, workplace raids have increased and deportations have more often been carried out in inhumane ways.

In response, a New Sanctuary Movement whose roots go back to the 1980s was formed to showcase and provide refuge for unauthorized people who voluntarily came forward to claim sanctuary, in the hope of calling attention to the plight of the millions of immigrants who live in fear of arrest and separation from their families. It’s undeniable that it takes courage and a willingness to serve a larger cause to play this role.

Last April we had the good fortune of sharing my father’s 90th Birthday with a large group of friends who assembled to share in the celebration. I shared a table at our celebration with the three adult children of now deceased Marco Palumbo, founder of the once famous Marco's in Coronado. In the early 1950s their father Marco, an illegal immigrant at the time, was sponsored and worked for my father where he met their mother who also worked in our family restaurant. You can read more about their family and pursuit of their dream of coming to America as portrayed by their cousin (paisan) who continues in the family tradition. (http://www.palumbosristorante.com/history)

Not unlike the plight of other immigrants, our families worked hard and contributed. They raised their children to become Americans, serve in our military, became lawyers, doctors, teachers, business owners and when given the opportunity - citizens.

Unfortunately, the immigration card has become a standard tool in the politician’s repertoire of attacking unrepresented class. How many decades of inhumane immigration policies will continue to pass before America has to stop apologizing for a history that’s not safely stored away in our repeating immigration history?

An End to an Era That Has Not Begun

By Randell A. Monaco, Esq.
January 4, 2011

It has been said, politics is the art of the possible. In these times, we all understand the need to deal with one’s political opposition. However, these days the tone of political opposition is more accurately described as political enemies. The term opposition seems to water down the real carrying on that continues to boil in Washington, our respective state capital’s and for that matter in the social media spaces.

When President Obama was elected many saw this as the beginning of a new era. Sadly most of us have been disappointed for reasons that will be explained. The reality is that President Obama’s election more accurately should have been, and some still hope will be described, as an end to an era of great disappointment.

At this point in the case of President Obama a criticism may be warranted. Put it this way, it’s one thing to make deals to advance your goals; it’s another to open the door to, as Paul Krugman has called it, zombie ideas or zombie economics. In his defense maybe it is unrealistic and not possible for President Obama to get more in the face of Congressional skepticism about our government. Our political system is broken and nothing short of election reform is likely to fix what needs repair first. Election and campaign finance reform is the first step to restoring confidence in our elected government.

Frankly, it seems a waste of time to continue partisan discussions and debate until something is done to fix the real problem that prevents America from recovery economically, socially and to restore the fundamental freedoms we universally were once recognized and praised for in the description, land of the free and home of the brave. I, as do many others, hope that our President will soon stand up to be counted as one of the Brave.

In making these criticisms, we can look at some of the reasons that undermine and justify skepticism about our current elected government. First, Economist and Nobel Laureate, Paul Krugman accurately states that Free-market fundamentalists have been wrong about everything — yet they now dominate the political scene more thoroughly than ever. After runaway banks brought the economy to its knees, we heard GOP conservative and congressional representative Ron Paul, who many consider to be, “father of the Tea Parties” say, “I don’t think we need regulators,” as they begin to take over a key House panel overseeing the Fed?

Now, maybe it wasn’t possible for President Obama to get more in the face of Congressional skepticism about government. But even if that’s true, it only demonstrates the continuing hold of a failed doctrine over our politics. A continuation of the era we had voted to end.

Mr. Krugman has explained that what the right said about why Obamanomics would fail was wrong. For two years we’ve been warned that government borrowing would send interest rates sky-high; in fact, rates have fluctuated with optimism or pessimism about recovery, but stayed consistently low by historical standards. For two years we’ve been warned that inflation, even hyperinflation, was just around the corner; instead, disinflation has continued, with core inflation — which excludes volatile food and energy prices — now at a half-century low.

Notably, Mr. Krugman accurately points out that Free-market fundamentalist have been wrong about everything — yet they now dominate the political scene more thoroughly than ever! The fact is that such failures don’t seem to matter and the people who should have been trying to correct these ideas and failed doctrines have only tried to compromise with them instead. This criticism is especially, though not only, true of the president himself. Some may argue that it is important to live to fight another day but I for one disagree. There are others too who would say, stand up for what is right and let the chips fall.

In fact in today’s Huffington Post, attorney Norman Goldman writes, “The Republicans have moved so far to the right that they keep planting their flag on ever more extreme soil and the Democrats keep moving over there, to be ‘centrist’ and ‘bipartisan.’ The entire political spectrum has moved so far right that I hardly recognize America anymore. The Republicans have called the tune and set the terms of debate for thirty years.”

Personally, to me it seems almost like high school dating. I couldn’t agree more, enough is enough. Someone has to have the guts to stand up and redefine "the center." How that happens in my opinion needs to start with election reform. Our elected government has lost the credibility needed to lead and we are just throwing hard earned money after bad. If the democratic process is to be salvaged then start with campaign finance reform and Fix Congress First. Restore trust in our democracy and then we can return to the partisan discussions to address the needs of America. Put the cart behind the horse.

As Mr. Goldman says, the future of America is at stake, we’ve had enough mimicry and corporatism. It’s time for our elected government to stop the self service and start serving the “people” of our nation.

I’m not willing to give up on President Obama yet, but it’s time to stand and fight with and for the proud and the brave, the people. Corporations are neither. At this point, President Obama needs to wrap his brain around this last thought, the Obama era does not exist because the former lives on. Grow a pair and let’s move on together the days are numbered.