Christine Hall, Author at If This Be Treason

When Customers Became Consumers

By Christine Hall on March 30, 2011

We haven’t always been a nation of consumers.

I remember when Americans were customers. We bought things because we wanted them or needed them. We would have laughed in the face of anyone with the audacity to suggest that it was our patriotic duty to consume, as Bush did after 9/11. If we were faithful to a brand, that faithfulness was brought about by value or product superiority. Companies worked hard to persuade us to become their customers, and they knew better than to insult us by assuming we were forced to use their products no matter what.

The Voucher Vultures

By Christine Hall on October 1, 2010

Radio talker Allen Hunt’s signature line is that his show “isn’t about right and left, it’s about right and wrong.” At first this sounds good, but after you listen to him for about fifteen minutes you realize his opinion is not much different than that of most of the other guys on AM radio, the right is right and the left is wrong.

As I was driving home from work the other night, he was doing his favorite schtick, which is bashing Obama. On this night, he was all over the president for sending his daughters to private schools while we working stiffs with limited income have to send our children to public schools. He thought all Americans should be able to give their children a private education, through that favorite program of the public school naysayers, the voucher.

Feds Want to Crack Your Blackberry

By Christine Hall on September 29, 2010

If you’re wondering why Research In Motion (RIM), maker of the Blackberry, was loathe to cooperate with the authorities in Dubai and India when they demanded access to encrypted Blackberry calls, it’s because they knew no matter how little they cracked that door, it would eventually open wide. Need proof? Take a look at Monday’s New York Times in which we learn that the Feds want new regulations to force companies like RIM to design back doors into their offerings to allow easy wiretap access by law enforcement. It’ll be hard for RIM to say “no” to the U.S. when they’ve already said “yes” to other countries.

“Essentially, officials want Congress to require all services that enable communications — including encrypted e-mail transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking Web sites like Facebook and software that allows direct ‘peer to peer’ messaging like Skype – to be technically capable of complying if served with a wiretap order. The mandate would include being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages.”

Tea Party Television on CBS

By Christine Hall on September 26, 2010

The ends justify the means. At least that’s the message I’m getting from two new cop shows on CBS, both of which indicate it’s ok for law enforcement to step on every constitutional right, so long as charges stick and society is protected. It’s as if the Strike Team on The Shield is suddenly a shining example of good, effective police work.

Friday night, the Tiffany Network premiered Blue Bloods, the new Tom Selleck vehicle. A character driven police drama revolving around a family of New York City cops, the opening episode is immediately reminiscent of the old Dirty Harry movies with Clint Eastwood. Here the premise seems to be that the police could be doing their jobs a lot better if they weren’t hampered by obstructions like the constitution.

The Emperor’s New Doctor

By Christine Hall on September 20, 2010

When Clinton accepted the Democrats’ nomination in 1992, he promised the party faithful that getting health care for all U.S. citizens would be his number one priority. He gave the impression that he’d come up with a plan and if that got knocked down by the evil doctors and Republicans he’d come up with another plan, and if that got knocked down he’d come up with yet another plan until it was a done deal.

He wouldn’t rest until the United States had a health care system in place that was on par with the rest of the developed world. If necessary, he would twist every congressperson’s arm or do battle with any lobbyist or special interest group, including the all powerful AMA. If elected, we could sleep well in the knowledge that before he left the White House, Americans from rich to poor would have equal access to health care.

The FDA & Genetically Engineered Salmon

By Christine Hall on September 16, 2010

This is an old story, but it needs mention every couple of weeks. The FDA is failing the U.S. consumer badly. Not only does it continue to approve genetically engineered foods for public consumption, without fully understanding the risks these foods might wreck on public health and the environment, it protects the producers of these foods by failing to require genetically engineered products be labeled as such.

According to The Good Human, if you eat processed foods, genetically engineered products are probably entering your body every day:

Obama goes to School

By Christine Hall on September 14, 2010

I live in North Carolina, and although we voted for Obama in 2008, it would be a mistake to consider this Obama Country. He still has a lot of support in the cities, but in working class neighborhoods and rural areas he’s seen with the same disdain as Jimmy Carter. Probably worse, since Carter had the good graces to be a southerner.

This morning Obama spoke to school kids across the country via television from Julia R. Masterman Laboratory and Demonstration School in Philadelphia. The address was about what you’d expect from any president on such an occasion, nonpartisan and motivational. He urged students to “dream big” and “stay focused” on their education. Pretty harmless stuff, which maybe a few students found moving and probably many more found boring, school kids being who they are.

The Rich & Taxes: A Post-Modern Myth

By Christine Hall on September 13, 2010

To hear the conservatives tell it, our economy will nosedive if the rich are required to pay an iota in taxes more than they do now. Indeed, we are led to understand the rich already pay more than their fair share, that their taxes need to be lowered so the middle class and the poor can shoulder more of the burden.

It’s understandable why folks under 30 might believe this argument. If the tax rate on the rich, defined by the Obama administration as those earning more than $250,000, is rolled back to nearly 40%, the rich just might not have the money to invest in businesses and create the jobs our country so badly needs. Never mind the fact that the rich aren’t investing in businesses and creating jobs anyway, even though the tax rate for high rollers is historically low.

The Government We Deserve

By Christine Hall on September 12, 2010

Lincoln didn’t tell us the whole truth when he said, “…you cannot fool all of the people all the time.” What he didn’t say, perhaps because it didn’t occur to him, was that you can fool a majority of the people all of the time, especially in the age of television and now, the Internet. Unfortunately, a majority is all that matters in a democracy. Democratically speaking, four sane people and six psychotic sickos means rule by the insane. Governments in the United States have been operating on this principle for quite a while now.

Over the last six decades, since the onset of the post World War II economic boom and the beginning of television on a mass scale, we’ve become a nation in which six out of ten of us believes we can find happiness through owning things. We’ve become materialistic on a scale never before seen in human history. All of our inner turmoils are solvable through ownership. Happiness comes from purchasing a new car, a new set of clothes, or the newest most cutting edge technological item.

The Politics of Corruption

By Christine Hall on September 11, 2010

Obama can’t succeed. No matter how clear his vision, he can’t overcome the corruption that’s been woven into the fabric of politics in America.

We’ve legitimized corruption. We’ve legalized it and given it constitutional protection. In the United States, identifying the true sources of governmental corruption is a treasonous act, for corruption is now built-in to the bricks and mortar of our system of government. To identify corruption here is to identify our governments, both local and federal. To call for corruption’s end is a call to bring down these governments, for governmental corruption is now such a cancer that it seemingly can’t be removed from our legal institutions without dismantling the government.

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