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WHY ROMNEY IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT AND AWAY FROM TAX DISCLOSURES,By Louise Annarino, August 3, 2012

3 Aug

WHY ROMNEY IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT AND AWAY FROM TAX DISCLOSURES, By Louise Annarino, August 3, 2012

Recently, (Democracy for America)DFA members attempted to deliver more than 245,300 petition signatures to Romney’s Boston campaign headquarters, asking for disclosure of more of his tax returns. They were turned away and escorted out of the building. This not the first, nor will it be the last request for more information from Mr. Romney regarding his tax returns. Every time he is asked he inadvertently drops another tidbit of information not only by what he let’s slip  (I’ve been audited a few times) but by what he refuses to discuss (I don’t know if I ever paid zero% but I’ll get back to you). To give him credit he never squirms while he skids.

Now, Senator Harry Reid is playing a well-worn political game of filling in the missing blanks for Romney with unsubstantiated allegations that Romney did not pay any tax for more than 10 years. This may or may not be true. This may be fun to watch. Games are fun to watch. I think this is too serious a matter to play games. I also find it undignified and wrong to make unsubstantiated charges against anyone. Besides, I don’t think Romney would refuse to open his tax returns for scrutiny simply because he paid no or very little tax. He is too proud of his ability to use the system for his personal gain to want to hide his skill at making and keeping money. He clearly has no qualms about outsourcing workers, gutting and shutting down companies. He brags about it constantly. He knows Americans admire millionaire entrepreneurs, and each aspires to become one. This would not be enough for Romney to fail to disclose his tax returns. There must be more than how much he earned and how much tax he paid in those returns and their attachments. There must be more he does not want us to know.

I would submit that Romney hides his returns for the same reason he is running for president. He is running as the front man for the now-global military-industrial-banking complex – the Great Pirates– which has been seeking more power over government.We have openly watched this replacement of political power owned by American voters with corporate power owned by too-big-to-fail-or share business since Ronald Reagan’s presidency through George W. Bush’s. President Obama’s greatest fight to change the way Washington works has been with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and ALEC via the Republican Party and Blue-dog Democrats. Obama’s pragmatism is the only thing which has saved him and us thus far.

When Reagan busted the air-traffic controller’s strike it was a blow against unions. The union of American workers was hard fought, opposed at every step by the Great Pirates. They have tried ever since to dismantle unions because unions are the one thing standing in their way of absolute domination of workers, wages, hours, safety and working conditions. Unions have led the environmental and consumer movements by opening our eyes to unsanitary conditions,unsafe products,hazardous chemicals and processes, and threats to our health and safety. Unions have led the movement for technical schools and training, access to higher education, and improved school models and increased funding for education.The Great Pirates want to eliminate the EPA, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Consumer Product Safety Commission, Department of Education, Federal Reserve and any institution in their way as they seek to maximize profits at the expense of our people and our planet. They seek small government or no government so they may pursue wealth with no restrictions, and no concern for anyone’s welfare but their own.

Mr. Romney, like George W. Bush is not his own man. He belongs to the Great Pirates fraternity, and is proud of it. But, he and they cannot afford for us to discover how that fraternity works against us. Why Romney? Why now? The Great Pirates now have firmly in place a global consortium of business and banks. They ply their trade across borders and seas as pirates of old did. They seek to control not only American workers, but the world’s workers. They have alliances not only with American bankers but with the world’s bankers. It is no mystery that Romney met privately with British bankers while in London, the same persons associated with LIBOR. Do we know why? We do know he was fund-raising. Fund-raising from foreign interests?  He told us this. It is not a point of shame nor worry for him. What don’t we know about his foreign associations with the old friends  he met with while abroad. It is reported he is an old friend of, and used to work with Bebe Netanyahu. Doing exactly what?

What is it about politics that renders Romney silent? He is a bright and literate man, capable of organizing and running companies. What is he hiding? He disappears inside himself when campaigning, and becomes robotic and nonsensical. Since his first political run for Governor of Massachusetts,this is his campaign modus operandi. He is uncomfortable and unsure of what to say unless someone else writes his script. Then he knows no shame, no uncertainty. Like George W. Bush, he is not his own man. He is the Great Pirates’ man. In front of the American public, he is only comfortable stepping back inside himself and being their man. It pays very well. Neither the Great Pirates,nor Mitt Romney, would have it any other way.

And,why has the Republican party shoved aside its great conservative intellects like Buckley, Will, and Krauthammer for tea-party ideologues like Buchanan, Palin,and Bachmann? The coffers of the Great Pirates exceeds the traditional Republican campaign chest, which in part led to McCain’s loss in 2008. Popular support for Obama with most donations less that $200 and a changing demographic less supportive of the Republican party platform cleared the way for tea party candidates supported by Great Pirates to win seats in the House and Senate in 2010. Republican leaders of Congress Sen.Mitch McConnel and Rep. John Boehner had little financial choice but to allow the tea party front for the Great Pirates take the lead strings from their tired,tight hands. Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan,bidding for leadership, jumped the Republican ship for the Pirate ship to McConnell’s and Boehner’s chagrin. If Congress is at sea, it is because the Great Pirates have boarded the Ship of State.

Their next goal, planned and put into operation since Inauguration Day, is to mutiny against the captain and make President Obama a one-term president.

The answer to why this multi-billionaire would run for president is not merely ego, nor to “outdo Dad”. He is the right pirate for the times, but he can’t tell you that!

Time to Grow UP

30 May

AMERICA’S TEEN YEARS ARE OVER

Louise Annarino

May 30, 2012

 

In 1978, as Columbus Legal Aid Society staff attorney, I had a client who had traveled to the Nebraska Territory as a 5 year old, her bare feet dangling over the back edge of the Conestoga wagon. As she was making her way west with her family, my Italian immigrant grandparents were being processed through Ellis Island. The timing of these events seemed to my young mind to be in the ancient past. These were events I had studied in history books. Interviewing my client that day affirmed what I had also been taught in history class – America is a young nation.

 

Over the years, I have often had to remind myself that young countries, like young people are often impetuous, misguided, unable to imagine a future where they are not the center of everyone’s universe. As we age we realize we are but a small part of the whole, no one is really paying any attention to us, and we need to think before acting to avoid mistakes. Young people are the gods of instant gratification. Older people are surprised whenever they have reason to feel gratified. Accepting less than what one hoped for is all too commonplace. Okay replaces great, good replaces perfect in the  vocabulary of the mature.

 

Tall tales are told by every age group; but,the young are more likely to believe them. Ad agencies, abetted by entertainment-focused news media have institutionalized tall-tale telling in America. And America is still young enough, naive enough, and gullible enough  to believe what it reads, sees, and hears. We chide the ancient Greeks, Italians and Vikings for their ancient wisdom urging them to act like the teenagers we act like. Teens assume everyone is the same, and hide any unique characteristic which would set them apart from their friends. They travel in packs, alert for any opportunity to enhance their stature or wealth, with the least amount of effort and few accomplishments to justify it.

 

Maybe it is time America grew up. Maybe it is time we only reward those who contribute to the common good and the survival of America. Maybe it is time to realize we are not infallible and admit when we make mistakes. Maybe it is time to accept those civilizations which survive are those which have something positive to offer the world: art, music, freedom, education, compassion, wisdom, openness to the gifts of other nations.

 

Maybe it is time we grew up. Maybe it is time to see bravado and war-mongering as a sign of  fear and weakness. Maybe it is time to see stereotypes and discrimination as a lack of imagination and knowledge. Maybe it is time to see distorting truth and manipulating economic markets for private gain over public good as greed and piracy.

 

Mature nations and mature people know themselves well, take time to learn others well, remain true to reality, understand life is difficult and complex, make decisions calmly and  with the input of those more knowledgeable than themselves, can cooperate and assimilate, mediate and confront with more light than heat. Mature persons reserve their strength, their opinion, their actions for the greatest impact. Mature persons are other-centered, not me-centered. A mature person would not associate with a buffoon-ignoramus-racist, going to the lowest level of American politics to win the presidency.1

 

I do not intend to vote for a teenager. I shall vote for the adult in the room, President Barack Obama. His leadership during his first term has been measured and mature, focused and decisive, cooperative and comfortably confrontive. America is now a mature player on the world stage; steady and dependable, self-assured and polite, strong and supportive of a more mature and peaceful world. Neither America nor President Obama are perfect; but, they are good. They are very good!

 

 

1. Matthews: Romney ‘Going To The Lowest Level Of American Politics’ With Trump Appearance, Noah Rothman,5:59 pm, May 29th, 2012,  http://www.mediaite.com/tv/matthews-romney-going-to-the-lowest-level-of-american-politics-with-trump-appearance/