Page 4 - Dinuba Sentinel 11-15-18 E-edition

Opinion
A4 | Thursday, November 15, 2018
Fred Hall - Publisher Rick Curiel - Editor
In My Opinion
e thing with common
sense.....
It is generally a given that, as members of the human race, we are possessed of five senses:
sight, hearing, touch, taste and
smell. Thomas Paine asserted that
we should also be possessed with the additional aspect of common sense which is defined as good sense and sound judgment in practical matters. Synonymswouldinclude: good
sense, sense, native wit, sensibleness, judgment, level headedness, prudence, discernment, canniness, astuteness, shrewdness, wisdom, insight, perception and perspicacity.
Following hard on the heels of an election in which California voters opted to tax themselves even more when it served no real demonstrable purpose, I have to question just how well common sense is represented
in this state. Specifically, I’m
referring to Proposition 6 wherein Californians chose to keep the most recent legislatively passed gasoline
tax increase which is targeted to grow precipitously. Adding to all of that Cap and Trade will return in 2020 to make thepainevenworse. Numberswhich
I have seen indicate that the eventual cost will be 78 cents per gallon. That’s on top of the highest prices in the nation.
Additionally, we managed to
elect several candidates whose credentials and agenda (if any) are trulyinexplicable. Moneyflowed
into this area from the outside.
That alone would make the voter suspicious of the motives. At least
one seasoned candidate with a record of achievement was replaced by a novice who, frankly, I believe would have a hard time telling you why they wereevenrunning. Toadegree,the California situation was mimicked in New York where a bartender is being sent to The United States House of Representatives with a demonstrable lack of knowledge of the job. All this happened while others were returned to office who have absolutely no record of accomplishment during their lengthy tenures.
The financing of campaigns and the presence of special interest groups aredeadgiveawaystothereason
for supporting or avoiding some candidatesandinitiatives. Onecan easily establish if the interest is in our local area or it is strictly financial and self-serving. Makenomistakeabout it,therearemanywhowouldliketo take control of this tiny sliver of the state that is the remaining conservative voiceinCalifornia. Whathappensif we were to lose the remaining thread of conservatism and sanity in the entire state?
While we are speaking of common sense, can anyone explain to how, after almost a week after the election, states like Florida and Arizona were continuing to find entire boxes of uncounted votes in some pretty obscure places. It reminds me of the year when the Democrat party found a box of ballots in the trunk of a car which turned out to be instrumental in Al Franken’s election to the Senate from Minnesota.
Guest Column
T"Spookonomics" and socialism
Fred Hall
Making the “discovery” of those ballots even more extraordinary would be the fact that the initial count in the state might have been 51% to 49%. The newest addition breaks70%to80% Democrat. Now, I
know that anything is possible but it sure as hell strains credulity that the divergence from the norm is so great.
On another note, an adult, somewhere, is going to have to stand up and apply the law to bring an end
to the homegrown terrorism currently being employed by disparate groups like ANTIFA is stopped. We see freedom of the press being defended so fervently while the right of individuals and others to speak their mind is subject to threat of bodily harm. Thank you Maxine Waters, a product of California, and others for advocating the spread of the spore for hatred.
Over the weekend I took time to readananalysisoftheelectionin
another newspaper. Their conclusion
that the failure of the current offering
of a water bond went down to defeat
because of “bond fatigue” on the part
of voters. I see it a bit differently. W There have been none water bonds
on the ballot since 1990 and all have succeeded. Unfortunately, without regard for how they were worded, not a single one seems to have improved the water situation here in The Valley. Bureaucrats and environmentalists seem to take complete control over any additional availability of money and completely overlooked the needs of the farming community which is the very heartbeat of the economy in our valley. There are only so many times that politicians can pull the wool over the eyes of voters. The old saw which goes, “Fool me once, shame on you; shame me twice, shame on me” comes to mind.
True resentment arises over Proposition 6, which we strongly believe was intentionally incorrectly and misleadingly worded when it appeared ontheballot. Thewordingwassuch that the voter was lead to believe that byvotingyes,theyweretakingaway
the repair of our roads. Truth is, your no-vote allowed the state to continue withthe12centspergallonwhichthey hadpassedearlier. Thereismoney
for the repair of roads in our previous system, had it been used correctly. Theysimplymuststop“stealing”road repair money is assist in the High Speed Rail project, which is neither viable nor will it ever be finished.
Money taken from the economy
and the individual taxpayer for use
by a governing body has a very poor shelfrecord. Theyblowthroughitlike a “drunken sailor” and inflict great economic harm on the goose which is busy laying the golden egg.
But, as always, that’s only one man’s opinion.
Fred Hall is publisher of the Dinuba Sentinel
e thank labor unions for the eight-hour
work day, pensions, the weekend, and many other employment benefits Americans enjoy.
World War I, virtually every [fighting] nation other than Britain and the United States had their government overthrown by their veterans.” It’s no stretch to say the G.I. Bill was passed, in part, to prevent revolution.
Two decades later, in the late 1960s, a movement within the U.S. armed forces emerged in opposition to the Vietnam War. Soldiers refused orders, sabotaged
equipment, and spoke out at protests. In Soldiers in Revolt: G.I. Resistance
Guest Column
How Veterans helped form military, middle class
Organized workers staged direct actions — strikes, sit-ins, boycotts, etc. — forcing bosses to the bargaining table. It’s a history most of us learn in high school.
More overlooked is the history of how the modern military was shaped by veteran-led direct actions.
For one thing, our military is famously all-volunteer. Civilians no longer fear being drafted.
To get those volunteers, recruiters and guidance counselors tout the free college education, sign-on bonuses, food and housing allowances, and VA benefits that come with military service. I was continually reminded of these things when I joined the Army in 2003.
Look into the history of these developments and you’ll find sit-ins, marches, and many other forms of direct action.
The G.I. Bill, passed in 1944, helped build the American middle class. It guaranteed millions of vets a college education, home loans, and more after World War II. It still does today.
Veterans of World War I, however, received no such benefit. So throughout the 1920s and early ’30s, they marched and demonstrated, demanding back-pay compensation (referred to as a “bonus”) to reasonably match what their civilian counterparts had earned on the home front.
The largest demonstration happened in 1932, when a 25,000-strong “Bonus Army” occupied Washington, D.C. for two months. The veterans vowed not to leave until Congress approved the bonus. Instead, General Douglas MacArthur removed them by force using cavalry troops and tear gas.
But the veterans’ efforts eventually paid off. The bonus was paid in 1936. This incredible history is documented in The Bonus Army (2004), by Paul Dickson and Thomas B. Allen, and The War Against the Vets (2018) by Jerome Tuccille.
These years of protests by World War I veterans gave veterans organizations, like the American Legion, significant leverage in advocating for the G.I. Bill. President Roosevelt and Congress understood that not passing such a bill could mean veteran-led civil unrest, or worse.
Michael J. Bennett, historian of the G.I. Bill, writes, “After
Kevin Basl
During the Vietnam War (2005), David Cortright concludes that Nixon ended the draft in 1973 in response to this alarming resistance. “The internal problems that gave rise to changes in tactical deployment” to Vietnam, he wrote, “were also responsible for... the shift to an all-volunteer force.”
Of course, an all-volunteer force would need to offer better incentives to recruit people. This is where the improved living conditions, sign-on bonuses, and increased starting wages mentioned in every recruiter’s sales pitch came from.
In the 1970s and ’80s (and beyond), the organization Vietnam Veterans Against the War made it a part of their mission to improve VA healthcare. They occupied VA offices, demonstrated, and even locked themselves inside the Statue of Liberty to amplify their message. They were key in getting the VA to recognize PTSD, Agent Orange exposure, and other illnesses afflicting veterans.
But as these benefits were won, they can also be lost.
Today, as more service members and veterans qualify
for food stamps, the VA system remains on the verge of getting dismantled. Meanwhile, soldiers are receiving orders sending them into morally and legally questionable territory (such as Trump’s “Operation Faithful Patriot,” deploying thousands of troops to the border of Mexico to stop unarmed migrants).
Against this, the history of veteran-led activism can provide inspiration and guidance. Direct action gets results.
Kevin Basl served in the U.S. Army, twice deploying to Iraq. He’s a member of About Face: Veterans Against the War and Veterans for Peace. Distributed by OtherWords. org.
rump’s White House seems “socialism” 144 times. That’s an to be both spooked... and average of twice per page! spooky. Among the horrors that the
Check out a 72-page “spookonomics” report issued right before Halloween by his Council
of Economic Advisors. It reads like an endless Trump tweet, focused on his perceived political enemies and riddled with fantasies, lies, and paranoia about the policies of progressives.
À la Joe McCarthy, Trump’s economic advisors spew conspiracy theories about the proposals of Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and other democratic populists, frantically linking them with “Failed Socialist Policies” of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and other communist dictators.
Bernie’s commonsense ideas
of Medicare-for-All and free
college education, for example, are hysterically decried as totalitarian designs from China and the USSR. Likewise, the report compares Warren’s assertion that corporate giants are dodging their tax obligations to Lenin’s demonization and killing of yeoman farmers.
In this ludicrous, right-ring political screed — paid for by us taxpayers — the fraidy-cat Trump scaremongers toss in the supposedly spooky word
Trumpistas cite is that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth
Jim Hightower
Warren have
stated that “large corporations... exploit human misery and insecurity, and turn them into huge profits,” and “giant corporations... exploit workers just to boost their own profits.”
Excuse me, learned scholars, but
all of that happens to be true, as the great majority of Americans know from experience. Trump’s economists also inform us that if the U.S. adopted Venezuelan policies, our economy would shrink by 40 percent. Well, perhaps, but here’s the thing: No one is proposing we do that.
What’s really spooky is that these know-nothing ideologues are actually advisers to a president of the United States.
Jim Hightower, an OtherWords columnist, is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker.
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