I Was Going to Apologize to Mike Gravel, but

Then I read this posting by JP. For the most part his posting, which has to do with the plight of the migrant tomato pickers in Immokalee, Florida, has nothing to do with Gravel, except when JP mentions the LOW cost of production due to our government supported/legalized slave labor as opposed to the HIGH price of goods at the point of sale. This is the big reason I had no use for Gravel: he was totally ignorant of any basic economic sense.

Last night as I responded to a comment, I mentioned how I once heard Thom Hartmann take Gravel to school. Gravel, like Huckabee, and I believe Ron Paul, want to do away with the IRS and replace it with a national sales tax. (my apologies to any other idiots with the same dumbass notion who I fail to name) I don't remember what Gravel called it, but Huck calls it a Fair Tax. There's nothing fair about it, lemme tell you. Sales taxes are highly regressive: they hit the poorest the hardest, and there's no way to sell them any differently. Doing away with the IRS? It would solve nothing, not to mention that it just won't fucking happen. anyway...

Gravel was somehow trying to get his crazy notion across that taxes are the reason we pay$1-200 for a fucking pair of sneakers made by slaves for Nike. As if somehow that gap between the pennies it costs to make them and the final sales price is all money that goes to the government. Hartmann had to basically spell it out, without the benefit of visual aides (which may have been why Gravel couldn't get the lesson), from costs of production, distribution, marketing, etc, that taxes aren't shit compared to the total price tag. That's all a Refuckyoucan/Conservative propaganda smoke screen. What affects the price of goods is the market: What will the market bear; what are people willing to pay. Nikes made in the US: $100. Nikes made in Asia: $100. Case closed.

Don't get flim flammed on this notion of lower corporate taxes somehow coming back, or trickling down to you in any form other than a big shit on your head.

Now back to Gravel, once again, as much as he was exposed as an idiot by Hartmann, I still do feel that I/we owe him a very sincere apology. The reason being that he was the first candidate to be arbitrarily excluded from the primary debates, and when it happened no one, myself included, seemed to care. I don't remember any of the other candidates protesting.

Gravel was the first step, then Kucinich. All along the networks focussed on their pre-ordained darlings Hillary and Barack, as shown by the timekeeper, Chris Dodd. SO...

Senator Gravel, please forgive me. I should have stood up for you, and in doing so, stood up for democracy. If I and others had, we might now have a different election.