Men Like Robert Moses and Mitt Romney

Robert Moses (1888-1981)

This week I've been rewatching New York a Documentary film directed by Ric Burns.  This is the third time I've watched it, because I love NYC so much.  I am especially fascinated in the episode that is about Robert Moses, who restructured New York City to his vision of what a modern city should look like, from around 1930 to the early 1960's, by building super highways, bridges, beaches, neighborhoods, inter alia.

Robert Moses was the urban planner of all urban planners.  In Staten Island, alone, where I live, he built the Staten Island Expressway and the Verrazanno Narrows Bridge.  He also built the Triburo Bridge.  All the tolls the cars had to pay to go across these bridges went to him.

Moses tore out huge sections of the city to put up highways.  He wanted to crisscross Manhattan with three super highways, but was finally stopped from doing that by a woman, Jane Jacobs.  He was one of the most powerful men that the City has ever known.  Obsessed with building highways, he seemed to care nothing about the lives of the people he was displacing or the architectural history of the city.  He replaced homes and mom-and-pop stores that had existed for decades, ruining the lives of thousands of people.  He thought that building highways everywhere would reduce the traffic congestion of the city, but it only increased it by bringing in more cars.  After all these highways he built, it's still almost impossible to drive in the city because of the traffic.  He thought he had a larger vision that he had to fulfill.  He referred to the people whom he moved out of their houses as "animals."  He didn't care about what they thought about him or anything else.

While watching this film about Robert Moses, I began to think about Mitt Romney.  I think these two men are much alike.  They have this vision of what they want to do, and don't really care about people.  Instead of highways, parks and beaches, Romney was obsessed with building and rebuilding companies.  If people had to lose their jobs, so be it.  They could go someplace else.  Some people had to sacrifice for the good of the whole.  Except, it seems, that the people who make others sacrifice for the good of the whole, never do it themselves.  These men may have larger views, but they don't care about the lives of the people that they disrupt in carrying out their vision.  They think what they do is the best for the whole, but is that the real motivation?  Or is it just the desire for power, and they figured out how to get it.  I don't pretend to know or to understand this kind of mind.

Men like Moses and Romney operate inside the law, but push it to its outer limits.  If what they want conflicts with the law, they either try to change the law or find a way of circumventing it.  Although Romney, from his background, seems like he's religious, the circumstances of his life don't seem very spiritual.  He has devoted his life to everything that is the opposite of spiritual, money and power.

How Obama Cutting Social Security Affected Me

A Senior in Battery Park, NYC (photo by Gayle)

We seniors on Social Security didn't get a yearly raise for two years 2010-2011.  That's the first time in history that happened.  The bogus excuse was that since the cost of living didn't go up, there was no reason to give a cost-of-living raise to people on social security.  Anyone who wasn't mentally retarded could see the cost of living going up every time they went to the grocery store.  This made me very angry as I know it did with other seniors.  It might have cost Obama the senior vote.

It's also terrible to make cuts in income during a recession to the most vulnerable group of people in that society, but not to the least vulnerable, like the 1%.   That was because President Obama could get away with that easier than if he had added taxes to the very rich.  People do what they can get away with, even Presidents.  That's human nature.  That's why societies in order to function at all have to have laws to cover every aspect of communal living.  I remember an interview between President Clinton and Charlie Rose.  Rose asked Clinton why he had the dalliance with Monica Lewinsky.  Clinton replied "Because I could."  Obama cut Social Security because he could.

However, these Social Security cuts these past two years didn't really affect me.  This year we seniors on Social Security got a 3-1/2% increase.  I live in subsidized housing for seniors, which means my rent is based on my income, which, for me, is only my social security check.  Therefore my rent went up.  Also other services I get were reduced because of the 3-1/2% income increase.  My raise was obliterated one week after I got my first check that reflected the raise.  My entire raise went straight back to the government.  I came out exactly the same as when we got no increase.

I'm probably the only senior left who will still vote for Obama, but that's because the other candidates are so much worse, not any great love for Obama.  I think this upcoming election, which I presume will be between Obama and Romney will have a very low voter turnout, because there's no enthusiasm for either one of them.  I can't remember another election during my lifetime that has been this depressing.

Please read my post about the Republicans and the current political scene on my other blog Gayle's Stream of Consciousness.

Remembering New York's Al Smith

Al Smith 42nd Governor of New York

The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy...Al Smith

More Democracy does not mean less regulations but more fairness for all.  More Democracy does not mean capitalism without any regulations at all.

I'm reminded of how New York City was back in the early part of the 20th century.  When no regulations on employers and factories existed.  When children and women with children worked in factories 7 days a week until the labor reform movement in which Al Smith from the lower east side headed.  When men ran factories with locked doors so the workers couldn't escape and were killed when fires broke out like in the shirtwaist fire in NYC in 1911.  If it weren't for regulations, working conditions like that would still exist.  It's through regulations that the country advances itself socially.  Laws that restrict against things like racism are regulations.

The republicans equate lack of regulation as democracy, but it's not.  Lack of regulation is barbarianism.  If Democracy can't provide fairness for people in all walks of life and on every level of income, then what good is it?

Rich Republicans like Gingrich and  Romney find regulations stifling, because they think it keeps people from making money, but that isn't true.  Look at them.  They're millionaires.  It only keeps opportunists like them from running amok over everyone else.  Regulations provide rules that have to be followed in making money in order to keep fairness in the marketplace.   Romney proves that success and great wealth is still very possible and still have regulations.  We need more regulations in the marketplace, not less, and especially in the financial sector.  It's lack of regulations on Wall Street that brought about the recession and the present financial mess in the country, not too many regulations.

The difference between the poor and the rich is too great.  That isn't what Democracy is ideally suppose to be about.  We need regulation in order to bring society closer together.  It's not true that the rich are better people.  They mostly are people who just care more about money and less about other things.

This Republican idea that making the rich even richer, by getting rid of taxes and have less regulations, will create jobs simply isn't true.  The President who created the most jobs was Franklin D. Roosevelt.  He did it through the government providing public works projects.  When we were in the Depression of the 1930's, the rich people did nothing to provide jobs and they had even less regulations and lower taxes   than we do now.  When Bush lowered the taxes on the rich, unemployment went up.  It didn't go down.  Nothing happened except for the gap between the rich and the poor widened and more people fell into poverty.

Snowy Owl Invasion

One of my favorite organizations is the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.  If you love birds as much as I do, you will enjoy a visit to their website.  Watch Video below on the snowy owl.  Just beautiful.

Romney is more Trustworthy than the Newt

There are aspects of both Romney and Newt that I like and dislike.  However, I think Romney's business expertise might be good for Washington.  He would run the country as though he were running a corporation.  He did good with corporations so he might do good with the country.  I'm reminded of Bloomberg in NYC.  Bloomberg, another consummate business man, who bought the job as mayor of New York City, has, despite all of that, been the best mayor we've ever had.  And I think that's because of his business mind.

What I like about Gingrich is how he sees everything from a historical perspective, which is largely corresponds to my own referencing.  I was a history major in college for a few years, and I wish I had a PhD in history.  However, he didn't make his money by any kind of business expertise, but by peddling influence based on his Washington ties.  He made his money from opportunity, not anything he did to create anything.  What is good about Gingrich is that he really understands how Washington works.  He's not the outsider as he likes to portray himself, but the total opposite.   He claims he wasn't a lobbyist for Fanny Mac, but that's just like Clinton saying that he never had sex with Lewinsky only because he's defining sex as only total sexual intercourse.  Gingrich says he wasn't a lobbyist only because that title isn't listed on his contract.  He has learned to mince his words just like Clinton did.  He was hired by the chief lobbyist at Fanny Mac, it's ridiculous to think that he could have been hired for any other reason.  A mortgage company would have no need for a historian.  If they really wanted a historian then why were they not hire a professional historian from one of the major universities?  Gingrich pushes the law right up to it's limit.  He knows which laws have grey areas that he can maneuver in.  He's a shyster.

Considering the pros and cons of these two men, I think Romney would be the best choice.  I think he's more trustworthy than Gingrich.

This is only if I were a Republican, which I'm not.  I'm still for Obama.  I think he made lots of mistakes based on the fact that he lacked Washington experience.  However, he's gaining that experience every day.  I like how Obama handles foreign policy.  However, I disagree with him on the pipeline question.  On the whole, I would prefer Obama to be less conservative.