Are Taosenos at Risk?

In Dante’s Divine Comedy Geryon is a winged beast with the tail of a scorpion but the face of an honest man. He dwells at the cliff between the seventh and eighth circles of Hell–the circles of violence and fraud. Geryon helps Virgil and Dante enter the eighth circle by carrying them on his back and gliding down the cliff.” (Paraphrased from Wickipedia)

Why are these men always smiling?

President Obama has said on more than one occasion that he models himself on Ronald Reagan—the populist puppet, whose administration ignited the accelerating gap between rich and poor. (See AP story below.) The current President has also accelerated the gap between constitutional safeguards and the encroaching police state. (See Headlines below.) The budget deficit appears to be a sideshow—like who was born where or whether or not your candidate was once a witch.

Fortunately, we Taosenos are no real threat to anyone except each other. As for income, the local politicos and their paid lapdogs are squirreling away our tax and electric rate dollars. Though, we’re no serious threat to capitalism, despite our anachronistic democratic socialist state, we urge local activists and naysayers to be very careful.

Citizens who oppose the U.S. Air Force low-flying training missions in El Norte can expect visits, surreptitious or otherwise, from the FBI and “Fusion” Intelligence agents. If you voice dissent, you may be giving comfort to America’s enemies in Afghanistan or worse. Local and national representatives of “Food Not Bombs” have been monitored, arrested, and beaten or tortured by police across the country.

Oppose the capitalist system—profits for the wealthy–and you risk your personal freedom. If you are a local elected official or activist who rises up and speaks out against tax and rate rises, like Virgil, or Luisa, Jeff or Jerome expect to be shunned, wiretapped, ridiculed, or arrested.

According to Flavio, agents taped the Mon.  night meeting in Taos, called to foment protest against low-flying aircraft. “Nobody is safe from the new McCarthyites,” said the town’s custodian of records. (See news reports below.)

As the Disappeared Barber has noted, “I have been profiled by ICE and Homeland Security on more than one occasion. Why do you think I live in Taos? I’m not from here. I’m a federal witness but there’s no protection against the politicos of El Prado.”

Obama Defends Citizen Assassination Program (Democracy Now, Sept. 27, 2010)

“In court papers filed on Friday, the Obama administration asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit without hearing the merits of the claims, citing state secrets. The ACLU and Center for Constitutional Rights criticized the Obama administration’s stance. In a statement, the groups said, “The idea that courts should have no role whatsoever in determining the criteria by which the executive branch can kill its own citizens is unacceptable in a democracy.”

Domestic Surveillance runs amok (Democracy Now, Sept. 27)

“Antiwar activists are gearing up for protests outside FBI offices in cities across the country today and Tuesday after the FBI raided eight homes and offices of antiwar activists in Chicago and Minneapolis Friday. The FBI’s search warrants indicate agents were looking for connections between local antiwar activists and groups in Colombia and the Middle East. We speak to the targets of two of the raids and former FBI officer Coleen Rowley.”

Suspicious Citizens Monitored

“We may get our answer from a project now being undertaken by the Justice Department called the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative. Federal, state and local law enforcement officials have set up “fusion centers” for the program in about a dozen cities, including Boston, Chicago and Houston, where reports of suspicious activities made by citizens and the local police are collected and analyzed for disturbing patterns.” (From NYT–Sept. 28)

Income Gap Approaches Record Levels
By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, September 28, 2010

A broad array of new Census Bureau data released Tuesday documents the far-reaching impact of a business slump that experts say technically ended in June 2009: a surging demand for food stamps, considerably fewer homeowners and people doubling up in housing to save money.

The new figures show, among other things, that marriages fell to a record low level in 2009, with just 52 percent of adults 18 and over saying they were joined in wedlock, compared to 57 percent in 2000. Many young people, at the same time, struggled to find work and achieve economic independence.

The government already had revealed that the income gap between the richest and poorest Americans grew last year by the largest margin ever, stark evidence of the impact the long recession starting in 2007 has had in upending lives and putting the young at greater risk.

The top-earning 20 percent of Americans — those making more than $100,000 each year — received 49.4 percent of all income generated in the U.S., compared with the 3.4 percent earned by those below the poverty line, according to the newly released Census figures. That ratio of 14.5-to-1 was an increase from 13.6 in 2008 and nearly double a low of 7.69 in 1968.

A different measure, the international Gini index, found U.S. income inequality at its highest level since the Census Bureau began tracking household income in 1967. The U.S. also has the greatest disparity among Western industrialized nations.

At the top, the wealthiest 5 percent of Americans, who earn more than $180,000, added slightly to their annual incomes last year, government data show. Families at the $50,000 median level slipped lower.

Three states — New York, Connecticut and Texas — and the District of Columbia had the largest gaps in rich and poor, disparities that exceeded the national average. Similar income gaps were evident in large cities such as New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Boston and Atlanta, home to both highly paid financial and high-tech jobs as well as clusters of poorer immigrant and minority residents.
On the other end of the scale, Alaska, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho and Hawaii had the smallest income gaps.

“Income inequality is rising, and if we took into account tax data, it would be even more,” said Timothy Smeeding, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who specializes in poverty. “More than other countries, we have a very unequal income distribution where compensation goes to the top in a winner-takes-all economy.”

As the singer says, “Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.” As Coach Branch says, “Pray for us St. Jude.” As Virgil says, “I feel sorry for Taos County.” As Jack Branchwater says, “FYIYCTAJ.”