Daily Show: Cantor Won’t?

Eric Cantor wants to cut other federal spending to justify financial assistance to tornado victims in Missouri.

Workers of America Unite; You Have Nothing To Lose But Your Chains!

Communism is an economic and socio-political theory proposed by Karl Marx that aims for a classless society structured on the end of wage labor and private property. Communist theory states that the main producers of wealth in society are the working class who are also perpetually exploited and marginalized by the unproductive capitalist owners of production. According to Marx, the only way to solve the problems caused by capitalism is for the working class to unite and overthrow the capitalist system itself via violent revolution.

For Marx, the end of capitalism is inevitable as the class conflict between those who have and those who have not caused by capitalism will ultimately lead to its destruction. However, class conflict in the United States is practically nonexistent as the American working-class has been tricked into accepting blame for the nation’s economic woes. The middle-class is too busy blaming middle-class pension plans and labor unions to remember the upper-class  actually caused the great recession. As it stands now, public teachers and firefighters are to blame not private bankers or hedge managers. Not surprisingly, no one from the public sector has been prosecuted for the illegal activities that ultimately caused the economic recession.

CNN’s Lisa Desjardins posted a blog examining what the current deficit debate is really about and the consequences each plan would certainly have for middle-class Americans. However, how democratic is the United States when justice, safety, education, health-care, and representation are determined by ones economic class? The American people have stood idly by for decades as:

• Corporate lobbyists maintain more influence in Congress than the American people
• The U.S. Congress facilitates the outsourcing of American middle-class jobs
• Corporations receive bailouts and/or subsidies devoid of strings
• Tax cuts for the extremely wealthy are paid for by cutting services for the poor and elderly
• Colossal military spending goes unimpeded while the average American soldier is underpaid

How can the average worker achieve the “American dream” within the current capitalist system? Should the American working-class  consider communism as a viable option?

–TERRANCE MULLINS

Daily Show: I Like Big Cuts

Is either party serious about cutting the deficit and reducing the national debt?

 

“Obamacare” and the Theory of Nullification

Idaho Alabama, Kansas, Maine, Missouri, Montana, Oregon, Nebraska, Texas and Wyoming are all talking about the idea of using the principle of “nullification” to hold up implementation of President Obama’s health-care reform initiative. Nullification is the theory that any U.S. State can reject any federal laws they individually  view as illegitimate. It stems from Thomas Jefferson’s view that the states have the final say in constitutional matters and not the federal governemnt. Jefferson fashioned the principle of nullification to express his disgust with the Alien and Sedition Acts enacted by then-President John Adams which made it illegal to criticize the president.

What many Americans fail to realize, including the politicians invoking Jefferson’s analysis of the constitutionality of nullification, is that Jefferson, who was a founding father, was actually not one of the framers of the U.S. Constitution. In actuality, Jefferson is not a valid source on constitutional matters as Jefferson was far away, in France, when the framers met in 1787 to replace the Articles of Confederation. The concept of nullification, while noble in sentiment, is wholly unconstitutional as the U.S. Constitution, unlike the Articles of Confederation, considers federal laws higher than laws of the individual states.

However, the U.S. Constitution can be changed. With all the recent anti-government sentiment and renewed “state’s rights” vigor among segments of the population, should an individual U.S. State be granted the right to nullify laws of the U.S. Congress? What would be the possible consequences of allowing states the option to decide which federal laws were acceptable?

–TERRANCE MULLINS