Comments on: Pelosi rams through $0.8 trillion tax increase, calls it a “jobs bill” http://www.aapsonline.org/newsoftheday/00295 from the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons Thu, 07 Apr 2011 16:47:01 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 By: Kitty Antonik Wakfer http://www.aapsonline.org/newsoftheday/00295#comment-2616 Kitty Antonik Wakfer Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:12:14 +0000 http://www.aapsonline.org/newsoftheday/?p=295#comment-2616 One can easily these days, with the Internet, become aware of government agency actions like the suppression of EPA scientists' report that, according to the CEI, "rel[ies] on outdated research and is ignoring major new developments. Those developments include a continued decline in global temperatures, a new consensus that future hurricanes will not be more frequent or intense, and new findings that water vapor will moderate, rather than exacerbate, temperature." One is left then to speculate why far more USers are not enraged that they are being lied to by government - this administration as well as previous ones. Are these individuals not listening to and/or reading sites that carry this type of expose? Or do those who remain silent not understand the reports, even though they are not terribly complex in their overviews? Or is it that these non-objectors simply do not think it worth their time to raise public objections? Maybe they simply do not believe the reports like this one from CEI, and choose to believe that the Obama administration (or some previous one in the past) would not conceal pertinent facts regarding proposed legislation, presidential actions or judicial arguments? (Although with so many other concealments previously made known, this latter possibility is hard to believe.) I am sure that there are other possibilities for the lack of public outrage but they all contribute greatly to the fact that the majority of US politicians continue to act as though it does not matter that a significant minority of the population does not want government creating regulations that will, even if unintended, enormously stifle the economy that it has already hamstrung - done years ago and frequently repeated. If this bill is not stopped in the Senate then it is crucial to remember that laws/mandates/rulings/directives/executive orders are all just words - it is the enforcement of them by government enforcers, with the legal use of force or threat of it, that is the real problem. All the words produced by legislators, judges and executives (the latter including the President) are simply so much squiggles on paper and ripples in the air without direct physical action by enforcers. I strongly recommend the reading and studying of Gene Sharp's 3 volume set, _The Politics of Nonviolent Action_. While public information dissemination and protests (in person, by mail, telephonically or electronically) are still allowed actions in the US, they are not sufficient in many cases to stop the opposition (the government). Additionally these methods are currently not enough to convince the great number of "bystanders" and supporters of the government that the problems with the proposed regulations (this one and so very many others) are monumental and that opposition to them is in their long range wide viewed best interest. Many of the methods, strategy and tactics of which Sharp writes are applicable to the US now, just as they have been used (not always successfully) in various parts of the world where the struggle was and is for "democracy". (The withdrawal from Medicare by physicians is one method that falls under the general category of "Citizens' Noncooperation with Government" - a boycott of a portion of government.) The US is technically a representative democracy, but that (and any variant of it) has never been and can never be a method by which each person can maximize his/her lifetime happiness all at the same time. This passed bill by the House, now off the to Senate for approval, is another of the many demonstrations of that fact. One can easily these days, with the Internet, become aware of government agency actions like the suppression of EPA scientists’ report that, according to the CEI, “rel[ies] on outdated research and is ignoring major new developments. Those developments include a continued decline in global temperatures, a new consensus that future hurricanes will not be more frequent or intense, and new findings that water vapor will moderate, rather than exacerbate, temperature.” One is left then to speculate why far more USers are not enraged that they are being lied to by government – this administration as well as previous ones. Are these individuals not listening to and/or reading sites that carry this type of expose? Or do those who remain silent not understand the reports, even though they are not terribly complex in their overviews? Or is it that these non-objectors simply do not think it worth their time to raise public objections? Maybe they simply do not believe the reports like this one from CEI, and choose to believe that the Obama administration (or some previous one in the past) would not conceal pertinent facts regarding proposed legislation, presidential actions or judicial arguments? (Although with so many other concealments previously made known, this latter possibility is hard to believe.)

I am sure that there are other possibilities for the lack of public outrage but they all contribute greatly to the fact that the majority of US politicians continue to act as though it does not matter that a significant minority of the population does not want government creating regulations that will, even if unintended, enormously stifle the economy that it has already hamstrung – done years ago and frequently repeated. If this bill is not stopped in the Senate then it is crucial to remember that laws/mandates/rulings/directives/executive orders are all just words – it is the enforcement of them by government enforcers, with the legal use of force or threat of it, that is the real problem. All the words produced by legislators, judges and executives (the latter including the President) are simply so much squiggles on paper and ripples in the air without direct physical action by enforcers.

I strongly recommend the reading and studying of Gene Sharp’s 3 volume set, _The Politics of Nonviolent Action_. While public information dissemination and protests (in person, by mail, telephonically or electronically) are still allowed actions in the US, they are not sufficient in many cases to stop the opposition (the government). Additionally these methods are currently not enough to convince the great number of “bystanders” and supporters of the government that the problems with the proposed regulations (this one and so very many others) are monumental and that opposition to them is in their long range wide viewed best interest. Many of the methods, strategy and tactics of which Sharp writes are applicable to the US now, just as they have been used (not always successfully) in various parts of the world where the struggle was and is for “democracy”. (The withdrawal from Medicare by physicians is one method that falls under the general category of “Citizens’ Noncooperation with Government” – a boycott of a portion of government.) The US is technically a representative democracy, but that (and any variant of it) has never been and can never be a method by which each person can maximize his/her lifetime happiness all at the same time. This passed bill by the House, now off the to Senate for approval, is another of the many demonstrations of that fact.

]]>