Job Creators...

Customers are the job creators... Without customers there are no businesses.


D'oh!


Customers are reasonably compensated employees.

Eat to Live: Industrial Agriculture vs. Sustainable Agriculture.

Genetically modified organisms (GMO) are a result of genetic engineering (GE) and they are not perceived as, “evil,” but as the most recent, lowest, level attained by unsustainable, industrial agriculture (IA).



IA promotes monoculture (enormous fields of one, identical crop) that forgoes the natural competition between the pests of different plants; requires the application of chemical pesticides. Avoids the natural remediation (legumes bring nitrogen from the air back to the soil, whereas other plants must get that nutrient from the soil) available from interleaved plant species; requires the application of chemical fertilizers. The promoting of monoculture, found nowhere in nature, requires the application of chemical herbicides. It might be important to highlight the definition of the the suffix  -cide: killer!



IA also promotes confined/crowded animal feeding operations (CAFO) that puts a great many animals in a very limited, unnaturally so, amount of space; such that they are constantly exposed to their own waste product. Large quantities of antibiotics, approximately 80% of the antibiotics used in the USA, are included in the daily life of the confined livestock. Antibiotics were also discovered to promote more rapid physical maturity (growth) in livestock, so the antibiotics are prone to being abused even for unconfined animals.



CAFO also feed corn to ruminants, creatures that evolved to survive by consuming and digesting enormous quantities of various grasses, to add fat (flavor and texture) to the protein content while simultaneously causing increased flatulence.



The constant exposure of flora and fauna to increasingly higher levels of: antibiotics, pesticides and herbicides has led to super: pathogens, pests and weeds. So, the corporations that profit mightily from IA step in with GE created GMOs. GMO corn that produces it's own pesticide (Bt corn) is fed to cattle, people and used to create a great many processed foods... What could possibly go wrong there?



GMO plants were created to tolerate higher levels of applied herbicides and pesticides without harm to the plants thusly modified; probably one of the factors in the phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder (CCD) in bee hives; disappearing the primary pollinators of food crops. Increased application of '-cides' is also harmful to farm workers and to soil microbes; microbes already under assault from the need to plow/till soil annually (exposing soil and its beneficial microbes to drying sun and winds).



GMO apples hide the fact that apples oxidize (turn a brownish color) once sliced, create pseudo-salmon (frankenfish) that gets much bigger, faster; more product, falsely labeled as salmon, to market (more money).



Once again asking, “What could possibly go wrong?”



The answer is that there hasn't been time for sufficient, peer reviewed, scientific inquiry to answer that oft repeated query.



That is not calling GMOs, “evil.” It is an attempt to call for a halt to the race to profit from the next generation of IA... A time to pause and consider the, properly peer reviewed, methods of sustainable agriculture.

One of the Main Reasons for Government...

Profit trumps responsibility too often in business. Unenlightened, self-interest driven economics is the reason you need rules, regulation and enforcement from government; enough power to reign in the corrupting  influence of money.



That's the theory, but it only works when everybody registers and votes in every election; routinely replacing elected officials. Politicians and diapers should be changed frequently, for the same reason.

Solutions to Political and Government Problems Start Here...

When talking about politics and government the problems vary, but the start (the beginning, etc...) to solutions does not: voters must register and vote in all elections.



1% may have most of the money, but 99% have almost all the vote! We can not all be bought. If we do not vote we have given our power away for free!

Doors Had Been Opened for Democrats in 2014...

And we did not walk through them!!!

Fewer than 30% of eligible voters made the effort to vote in TX in 2014!  We got what we deserved: dysfunctional, Republican majorities in the TX House and Senate; Republican, problem children in the Gov. and Lite Gov. offices.

My name is Stephen Wyman and I was the Democrat running for TX House of Representatives, House District 20: Burnet, Milam and northern Williamson counties.

This next election year, 2016, Democrats will have many doors opened for them again; for instance:

• Climate change.
• Immigration reform.
• Minimum wage.
• Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
• SNAP (food stamps), housing assistance, welfare.
• Government austerity to recover from recession.
• Supply Side (trickle down) economics.
• Stripped down Voting Rights Act.
• Very specific photo ids required for voting.
• More limited access to the polls.
• Electronic voting with no paper ballot audit trail.
• All Unions are assailed.
• Education outsourced.
• Religion taught as science.
• Equal pay for equal work.
• Family planning or women's health care clinics.
• Marriage equality.
• Two long, simultaneous wars started without expansion of the VA.

Yes, doors have been opened and we, Democrats, didn't walk through them last year.

There will be messes to be picked up at the state and federal government in 2016, they will be fewest if the state Republicans are as incompetent at governing as the Republicans in the federal government.

First, still, we must continue to register voters, and then we must help them get to the polls.

Why?

It is because elected officials will have to deal with a great majority of these problems. We must elect people who will deal expeditiously with these issues. I believe the Democratic candidates on next year's ballot will still be just the folks to get the job done.

First, voters must: Give, “Hope and Change,” a

Chance... and a Push!

Register and Vote!

1% may have most of the money, but 99% have almost all the vote.  We can not all be bought, but we might give it away, again, if we don't show up, again.

Turn TX Blue in 2016!

The Power of the Vote!

Everybody,

1% may have most of the money, but 99% have almost all the votes; simple math.

The proposed 28th amendment to the Constitution (attempting to rectify the ill effects of the Supreme Court’s error in both the ‘Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission’ and the ‘McCutcheon, et al. v. FEC’ case verdicts) is a band-aid to cover the 99%'s abdication of the power of the vote in a democratic republic.

In 2008 and 2012 the plutocracy attempted to buy the White House for a business/plutocrat friendly candidate. Both efforts were thwarted, demonstrating the power of the vote so dramatically that gerrymandering, voter ids and restricted polling times were used to rein in access to voting (for those who were thought to be prone to voting for Democrats).

The plutocracy is attempting to buy mid-term (in 2014, as they did in 2010) elections to create a Tea Potty, Republican dominated group of state legislatures and, of course, the US Congress; the legislature that says, “NO!” to everything President Obama proposes.

If the 99% were to exercise their vote, in all elections, we could eventually retake the republic and return it to the concept: of, by and for the people.

Let's fix the problem; put the band-aids back! Voting is a responsibility, and we've already demonstrated what happens when we don't exercise that responsibility... It ain't pretty!

Care,
Stephen M. Wyman
Candidate for TX House, HD 20, in 2014
Give, "Hope and Change," a Chance... and a Push!!!
Turn TX Blue in 2014!

The Truth About Hydrocarbons vs. Renewables!

The Hydrocarbon (Oil, Gas and Coal) Industries have always turned a blind eye to the hazards of extraction, transportation, burning and waste products associated with their businesses.  By overlooking the aforementioned problems, and the costs of their direct and indirect consequences, supporters of hydrocarbon usage have presented a cost/benefit (of using hydrocarbons) analysis that is favorable when compared to renewable energy (Wind, Solar and Conservation). 

This lie has been told for so long and by so many that it is readily confused with truth.  The hydrocarbon industry has continuously promoted this lie for its own benefit. 

It is well past time to tell the truth and reduce problems and pollution, while actually growing sustainable industries and jobs!  

Wind and solar must be built, installed, operated and maintained; job creation.  Wind energy is captured by wind turbines of various designs well overhead of people and local buildings.  Some claim that birds are hurt and killed by these turbines, without any known evidence, while showing no regard at all for the creatures (including people) hurt or killed just by automobiles using gas or diesel fuels; both are hydrocarbons. 

Distributed electricity generation (net metered: roof top, solar panels or local, small to reasonably enormous wind turbines) require additional, intelligent distribution grids; more jobs created...

Conservation, wind and solar (distributed generation of electricity) present direct threats to the profit margins of oil, gas and large (enormous) utility companies and therefore have been, and will continue to be, resisted by any means they feel are needed; honesty be damned.

To restore and preserve the health of the only planet we have (and all the people, plants and animals that must live here) we must recognize the Climate Change that we the people have caused (there is no need to believe, because the evidence is everywhere) and change our ways.  This not only grows the economy, it reduces health care needs and costs as well.

This is one of the prime reasons for government: enforced regulation of industry.  Industries are in the business of making money and they, too often, will not take responsibility for their actions if it might reduce profit margins.

Register and Vote in every election for the people you think will do the best job in elected office.  Remember, if your vote were not important no one would be trying to make voting more difficult.  In 2008 and 2012 a concerted effort was made to purchase the Presidency of these United States for industry friendly candidates; both efforts were defeated by voters.

Give, “Hope and Change,” a Chance… and a Push!

Turning TX Blue in 2014!