Bob Lord

Posted by Bob Lord

I've never considered myself a single issue person / voter / blogger. But I'm admittedly headed in that direction. It's not that I don't care about other issues. I just feel that we've reached the point where if nothing is done to stop, then reverse, the concentration of wealth and income at the top, not much else will matter. 

Think of how a game of Monopoly progresses. At the outset, all players are equal, each with $1,500 of wealth. In the early stages of the game, all players acquire wealth, with some progressing faster than others. But even the players who are not landing on the choice squares still are making more money passing go for $200 than they are having to spend. At some point, however, the game crosses a threshold after which the successful players are acquiring more wealth at the expense of other players than those players are able to generate. That's when life gets ugly, player by player, until only one remains.

As I see it, America has crossed that threshold into ugliness.

Posted by Bob Lord I'm generally a Bill Maher fan. I love his willingness to stray from political correctness in order to speak truth.  But on Friday's Real Time, it was Glenn Greenwald who spoke truth to a Bill Maher whose incorrectness wasn't political. It was just bigoted and wrong. It was the first time … Read more

Posted by Bob Lord

It seems I"m bumping into more commentary on inequality lately, but I honestly have no idea whether that's because people are waking up or because my browsing pattern is putting more and more of that commentary in front of me. I fear it's the latter.

In any case, Jared Bernstein put in his two cents last week a NY Times column, Where Have All the Jobs Gone? The piece is an interesting example of fear-driven commentary. Bernstein succinctly draws the connection between inequality and jobs:

Posted by Bob Lord So, the Stewart campaign is lashing out at me for my post last night regarding comments Mary Rose Wilcox made about Kate Gallego that I found baseless and defamatory, and Stewart's failure to disown Wilcox's remarks. These tweets from Mario Diaz, Stewart's paid consultant: Will someone please tell Bob Lord that he is not relevant in … Read more

Posted by Bob Lord

Disclosure: I have endorsed Kate Widland Gallego for Phoenix City Council in CD8

I missed this last month, not sure how. Because this is a shining example of how voters lose respect for politicians. 

According to The Phoenix New Times, Pastor Warren Stewart, held a telephone town hall last month, moderated by his buds and campaign supporters, Mary Rose Wilcox and Danny Ortega. Apparently, Wilcox couldn't help herself and resorted to full on ludicrous to disparage Stewart's opponents. It just doesn't get any more pathetic than this:

"The other candidate recently started using her married name from Widland to Gallego. I'm going to be frank with you, there are all kinds of political tricks to confuse the Latino and African-American communities, but in this election, those tricks are not going to work. Let me echo what Danny Ortega said: There are no Latinos or Latinas running for City Council, period."

WTF? She's actually accusing Kate Widland Gallego of taking her husband's last name to play a "political trick" on the voters and "confuse" them about her status as a Latina. Really, Mary Rose? Why, then, is it that Kate still includes her maiden name "Widland" in her name? But, while we're on the subject of playing tricks on voters, isn't it a tad deceptive to state that Kate "recently started" using her husband's last name, without mentioning that her use of the name Gallego is "recent" only to the extent that her marriage was recent? And does anyone really doubt that if Kate didn't take her husband's Latino surname the Mary Rose Wilcox's of the world would be maligning her for not doing so?