Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
Keep The Change
By Sheila Samples
March 22, 2010
Change is the process by which the future invades our lives
- Alvin Toffler, "Future Shock"
Each time it appears that Republicans can't get any nastier, any more bereft of morality, they wrap themselves in the flag, grab their guns and Bibles, and manage once again to hit the bottom of the ethical barrel. A good example is Ben Smith's recent startling revelation in Politico.com, which exposed the dirty tricks Republican National Committee (RNC) operatives were planning to play, not only on Democrats in the upcoming elections -- but on their own donors. Smith writes...
"Manipulating donors with crude caricatures and playing on their fears is hardly unique to Republicans or to the RNC -- Democrats raised millions off George W. Bush in similar terms -- but rarely is it practiced in such cartoonish terms."
One page, headed “The Evil Empire,” pictures Obama as the Joker from Batman, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leaders Harry Reid are depicted as Cruella DeVille and Scooby Doo, respectively."
Ruh-Roh. I can't help it -- that's good for a grin, albeit a ghoulish one. And the “tchochkes,” or swag, such as T-shirts, tote bags, baseball caps, and other useless crap they planned to give to their donors in exchange for big bucks made some of us laugh out loud.
But that's just the funny part. The far more frightening aspect is the lengths the rabid radical right -- not just the Republican Party -- is willing to go in order to destroy President Obama and the "socialist commies" who elected him. They are very open about it; proud to be the "Party of No," and brag about burying Obama under a burning health-care pyre. Nearly a year ago, South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint gloated -- "this health-care issue is D-Day for freedom in America...If we’re able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him."
Former Bush speech writer David Frum admitted to MSNBC's Ed Shultz on his March 18 show that negotiation has never been on the Republican's health-care table. Frum said...
"It's critical for everybody, and not just the president. It's critical for us on the Republican side, too. If this thing passes, there is going to be an accountability moment on the Republican side. We had a choice, do we negotiate and try to get some of our values in the bill? Or do we go for total defeat of the president and bet everything on that?
"I was one of those who said negotiate. That advice was rejected. We went for total defeat of the president. If he prevails, it is going to be a shutout of Republican views in one of the most important pieces of legislation ever passed in the United States."
Some are disillusioned with Obama because they feel he has not been forthcoming with his promise of change. They do not seem to realize that, for more than a decade, change in this nation has been overwhelming. Since the Kafkaesque mutation of the Republican establishment, whose metamorphosis into a destructive force was sudden as a result of five right-wing justices on the U.S. Supreme Court stopping the Florida recount in December 2000 and handing the presidency to one of their own even though his opponent won the national popular vote by more than a half million ballots, the change within the Republican party has been nothing less than frenetic.
This is no longer about politics, where opposing sides butt heads, twist arms and kick ass until they manage to agree on legislation that will benefit American citizens on both sides of the aisle. It is not, as Frum said, about merely defeating this president. It is about destroying him; about weaving a noose for him out of lies and dirty tricks; about sending a message to future generations of African Americans that the "White" House means just that.
If you doubt that the right-wing crusade is about race, you are either so oblivious of the past that you see nothing unusual about the present -- or you haven't been to a Tea Party lately. At Tea Parties across the nation, Obama is not only portrayed in hideous caricatures as the Joker, but as others such as Adolph Hitler, Karl Marx and Osama bin Laden.
Initially, the Tea Party movement was started by Congressman Ron Paul to appeal to Americans who were frustrated and fed-up with such things as taxes and wars, but it was immediately co-opted by right-wing think tanks and by Fox News whose target-eyed pundits brayed 24/7 about a massive "white culture" crusade taking over the nation. Racist hatemongers joined the party, especially Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and,in no time at all, had David Duke, a "white nationalist" and former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan,looking like a rank amateur.
These guys aren't crazy -- okay, maybe they are -- but they know exactly what they're doing. They learned from eight years of K-K-Karl Rove and Dick Cheney that fear and hate are the two easiest emotions to work with. Stir in a generous helping of rage, and entire cultures can be manipulated into a frenzy. And, when those emotions feed on racism, a gathering can be turned into a mob, which can then be whipped into a destructive, extremist riot.
In the Spring 2010 Intelligence Report published by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Mark Potok examines the "Rage on the Right." He writes...
"Since the installation of Barack Obama, right-wing extremists have murdered six law enforcement officers. Racist skinheads and others have been arrested in alleged plots to assassinate the nation’s first black president. One man from Brockton, Mass. -- who told police he had learned on white supremacist websites that a genocide was under way against whites -- is charged with murdering two black people and planning to kill as many Jews as possible on the day after Obama’s inauguration. Most recently, a rash of individuals with anti-government, survivalist or racist views have been arrested in a series of bomb cases.
"As the movement has exploded, so has the reach of its ideas, aided and abetted by commentators and politicians in the ostensible mainstream. While in the 1990s, the movement got good reviews from a few lawmakers and talk-radio hosts, some of its central ideas today are being plugged by people with far larger audiences like FOX News’ Glenn Beck and U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn). Beck, for instance, re-popularized a key Patriot conspiracy theory -- the charge that FEMA is secretly running concentration camps -- before finally “debunking” it.
"Last year also experienced levels of cross-pollination between different sectors of the radical right not seen in years. Nativist activists increasingly adopted the ideas of the Patriots; racist rants against Obama and others coursed through the Patriot movement; and conspiracy theories involving the government appeared in all kinds of right-wing venues."
The SPLC also reports that just in the first year of the Obama presidency, "an astonishing 363 new Patriot groups appeared in 2009, with the totals going from 149 groups (including 42 militias) to 512 (127 of them militias) -- a 244% jump."
We are falling apart. We have lost our sense of decency, our sense of direction. The past is overtaking us, and will soon be our future. We are surrounded by increasingly violent gun-toting "Patriots" who are eager to water the Tree of Liberty with the blood of loony liberals, Commies, and Socialists -- starting with their Black President who, according to the mad dogs on the right, is determined to destroy the freedoms of loyal Americans.
Are we going to stand here, suffering from change shock -- too much change in too short a period of time -- and do nothing? It's tempting, but as Chris Hedges warns,
"To give up acts of resistance is spiritual and intellectual death. It is to surrender to the dehumanizing ideology of totalitarian capitalism. Acts of resistance keep alive another narrative, sustain our integrity and empower others, who we may never meet, to stand up and carry the flame we pass to them. No act of resistance is useless. ... But we will have to resist and then find the faith that resistance is worthwhile, for we will not immediately alter the awful configuration of power. And in this long,long war a community to sustain us, emotionally and materially, will be the key to a life of defiance. As long as we are willing to defy these forces we have a chance, if not for ourselves, then at least for those who follow."
I agree. We must resist -- in order to stop the right-wing's race to destruction before it's too late -- and to change the shock of our children's future.
Sheila Samples http://sheilastuff.blogspot.com/ is an Oklahoma writer and a former civilian US Army Public Information Officer. She is an OEN editor, and a regular contributor for a variety of Internet sites.
March 22, 2010
Change is the process by which the future invades our lives
- Alvin Toffler, "Future Shock"
Each time it appears that Republicans can't get any nastier, any more bereft of morality, they wrap themselves in the flag, grab their guns and Bibles, and manage once again to hit the bottom of the ethical barrel. A good example is Ben Smith's recent startling revelation in Politico.com, which exposed the dirty tricks Republican National Committee (RNC) operatives were planning to play, not only on Democrats in the upcoming elections -- but on their own donors. Smith writes...
"Manipulating donors with crude caricatures and playing on their fears is hardly unique to Republicans or to the RNC -- Democrats raised millions off George W. Bush in similar terms -- but rarely is it practiced in such cartoonish terms."
One page, headed “The Evil Empire,” pictures Obama as the Joker from Batman, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leaders Harry Reid are depicted as Cruella DeVille and Scooby Doo, respectively."
Ruh-Roh. I can't help it -- that's good for a grin, albeit a ghoulish one. And the “tchochkes,” or swag, such as T-shirts, tote bags, baseball caps, and other useless crap they planned to give to their donors in exchange for big bucks made some of us laugh out loud.
But that's just the funny part. The far more frightening aspect is the lengths the rabid radical right -- not just the Republican Party -- is willing to go in order to destroy President Obama and the "socialist commies" who elected him. They are very open about it; proud to be the "Party of No," and brag about burying Obama under a burning health-care pyre. Nearly a year ago, South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint gloated -- "this health-care issue is D-Day for freedom in America...If we’re able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him."
Former Bush speech writer David Frum admitted to MSNBC's Ed Shultz on his March 18 show that negotiation has never been on the Republican's health-care table. Frum said...
"It's critical for everybody, and not just the president. It's critical for us on the Republican side, too. If this thing passes, there is going to be an accountability moment on the Republican side. We had a choice, do we negotiate and try to get some of our values in the bill? Or do we go for total defeat of the president and bet everything on that?
"I was one of those who said negotiate. That advice was rejected. We went for total defeat of the president. If he prevails, it is going to be a shutout of Republican views in one of the most important pieces of legislation ever passed in the United States."
Some are disillusioned with Obama because they feel he has not been forthcoming with his promise of change. They do not seem to realize that, for more than a decade, change in this nation has been overwhelming. Since the Kafkaesque mutation of the Republican establishment, whose metamorphosis into a destructive force was sudden as a result of five right-wing justices on the U.S. Supreme Court stopping the Florida recount in December 2000 and handing the presidency to one of their own even though his opponent won the national popular vote by more than a half million ballots, the change within the Republican party has been nothing less than frenetic.
This is no longer about politics, where opposing sides butt heads, twist arms and kick ass until they manage to agree on legislation that will benefit American citizens on both sides of the aisle. It is not, as Frum said, about merely defeating this president. It is about destroying him; about weaving a noose for him out of lies and dirty tricks; about sending a message to future generations of African Americans that the "White" House means just that.
If you doubt that the right-wing crusade is about race, you are either so oblivious of the past that you see nothing unusual about the present -- or you haven't been to a Tea Party lately. At Tea Parties across the nation, Obama is not only portrayed in hideous caricatures as the Joker, but as others such as Adolph Hitler, Karl Marx and Osama bin Laden.
Initially, the Tea Party movement was started by Congressman Ron Paul to appeal to Americans who were frustrated and fed-up with such things as taxes and wars, but it was immediately co-opted by right-wing think tanks and by Fox News whose target-eyed pundits brayed 24/7 about a massive "white culture" crusade taking over the nation. Racist hatemongers joined the party, especially Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and,in no time at all, had David Duke, a "white nationalist" and former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan,looking like a rank amateur.
These guys aren't crazy -- okay, maybe they are -- but they know exactly what they're doing. They learned from eight years of K-K-Karl Rove and Dick Cheney that fear and hate are the two easiest emotions to work with. Stir in a generous helping of rage, and entire cultures can be manipulated into a frenzy. And, when those emotions feed on racism, a gathering can be turned into a mob, which can then be whipped into a destructive, extremist riot.
In the Spring 2010 Intelligence Report published by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Mark Potok examines the "Rage on the Right." He writes...
"Since the installation of Barack Obama, right-wing extremists have murdered six law enforcement officers. Racist skinheads and others have been arrested in alleged plots to assassinate the nation’s first black president. One man from Brockton, Mass. -- who told police he had learned on white supremacist websites that a genocide was under way against whites -- is charged with murdering two black people and planning to kill as many Jews as possible on the day after Obama’s inauguration. Most recently, a rash of individuals with anti-government, survivalist or racist views have been arrested in a series of bomb cases.
"As the movement has exploded, so has the reach of its ideas, aided and abetted by commentators and politicians in the ostensible mainstream. While in the 1990s, the movement got good reviews from a few lawmakers and talk-radio hosts, some of its central ideas today are being plugged by people with far larger audiences like FOX News’ Glenn Beck and U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn). Beck, for instance, re-popularized a key Patriot conspiracy theory -- the charge that FEMA is secretly running concentration camps -- before finally “debunking” it.
"Last year also experienced levels of cross-pollination between different sectors of the radical right not seen in years. Nativist activists increasingly adopted the ideas of the Patriots; racist rants against Obama and others coursed through the Patriot movement; and conspiracy theories involving the government appeared in all kinds of right-wing venues."
The SPLC also reports that just in the first year of the Obama presidency, "an astonishing 363 new Patriot groups appeared in 2009, with the totals going from 149 groups (including 42 militias) to 512 (127 of them militias) -- a 244% jump."
We are falling apart. We have lost our sense of decency, our sense of direction. The past is overtaking us, and will soon be our future. We are surrounded by increasingly violent gun-toting "Patriots" who are eager to water the Tree of Liberty with the blood of loony liberals, Commies, and Socialists -- starting with their Black President who, according to the mad dogs on the right, is determined to destroy the freedoms of loyal Americans.
Are we going to stand here, suffering from change shock -- too much change in too short a period of time -- and do nothing? It's tempting, but as Chris Hedges warns,
"To give up acts of resistance is spiritual and intellectual death. It is to surrender to the dehumanizing ideology of totalitarian capitalism. Acts of resistance keep alive another narrative, sustain our integrity and empower others, who we may never meet, to stand up and carry the flame we pass to them. No act of resistance is useless. ... But we will have to resist and then find the faith that resistance is worthwhile, for we will not immediately alter the awful configuration of power. And in this long,long war a community to sustain us, emotionally and materially, will be the key to a life of defiance. As long as we are willing to defy these forces we have a chance, if not for ourselves, then at least for those who follow."
I agree. We must resist -- in order to stop the right-wing's race to destruction before it's too late -- and to change the shock of our children's future.
Sheila Samples http://sheilastuff.blogspot.com/ is an Oklahoma writer and a former civilian US Army Public Information Officer. She is an OEN editor, and a regular contributor for a variety of Internet sites.
The Real Legacy Of G. W. Bush
By Mary Pitt
March 21, 2010
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Toward the end of the reign of the Bush regime, Mr. Bush began to consider the "legacy" of his presidency, setting up a library to hold his papers and to assure that this nation would never forget his term in office. However, there is no way that the real legacy of his two-term rule would ever be memorialized in any facility bought and paid for by his political machine. He has made a mark on our American soul that will remain a very long time; like a large scar from an almost-fatal wound.
On September 11, 2001, the whole nation saw the awesome destruction of the World Trade Center. If not actually on the site, we saw it live on television or played and re-played on the news. The actual deed, followed by the speeches by President Bush and his followers and assistants, drove the knife of that legacy deep into the hearts of Americans everywhere. That legacy was a paralyzing fear; gut-wrenching, breath-taking, spine-tingling, blood-chilling FEAR!
To a generation that grew up with air-raid drills, stop-drop-and-cover admonitions pounded into our young consciousness, the horrors of Korea and Vietnam, and the seemingly never-ending Cold War, it took little chain-rattling for the fight-or-flight instinct to become activated. Add to that the patriotic adages that we have learned from history, "The Red, White, and Blue don't run!" and you have a compliant herd of sheep that will do as commanded by whomever is in charge.
Under that impetus Congress, for the first time in history, granted the President the unmitigated authority to go to war without a Constitutional mandate. In addition, as he did precisely this, not once but twice, they also handed him the national credit card with no limit. Nobody asked how much it would cost. Nobody asked whether our "all-volunteer military" was strong enough to fight a two-front war. Nobody dared suggest the reinstatement of the draft which had served this nation so well in the past. Instead, the National Guard was taken from their traditional obligations to protect the "home front" and sent to war. Armed militia were hired to supplement our forces and contracts were let for the furnishing of meals, transport, and other essential services, paid for by "credit card" and which remain unpaid.
The nation as a whole was deeply committed to the commands of The Ogre Under the Bed. Nobody but the few with immunity dared question any decision from the White House upon hearing the rattle of the chains. The Bill of Rights was shredded and the Constitution crumpled and tossed into the waste basket as Congress obediently passed the Patriot Act . All law enforcement in the country was bundled into a Department of Homeland Security and their focus was changed from one of catching crooks to catching "spooks". If you spoke out against the policies of the administration, you might find yourself restrained from receiving a passport or prevented from boarding an airplane. The Ogre was under your bed and he was listening and waiting for you to offend!
In addition, the Holy Ghost was implicated as the President roamed the world proclaiming that he was doing The Lord's Work. His words were accepted as the Word of God in churches throughout the land and the fear of retaliation according to the Good Book reinforced the Ogre Under the Bed. If you had not sufficient fear of the Ogre, the Devil would get you.
Eight years later, with a new President and a new spirit in the land, it was determined that the wars have reached their end and may be systematically ended. Now the people are suffering as the result of economic collapse brought on by the free-spending and the neglect of the previous administration, also that the "spooks" that must be vanquished are of the more psychological perspective.
The Republican members of Congress are still under the spell of the Ogre as they struggle against the programs that are needed to place the nation back on the right track, to bind up the wounds of war, attend to the long-neglected workers as they lose their jobs due to the Wall Street-instigated crash, and go about the business of caring for the citizens. Only now they are "afraid" that we will not be able to pay our bills and are "worried about the future." They seem lost and leaderless, unwilling or unable to resume their responsibilities of steering the nation without a real leader to tell them what to do.
The current President sees the world as it is rather than as it was in the middle of the last century and tries to move our gaze forward to building a better future. But first we must struggle with the Holy-Word-according-to-G-W-Bush as well as the Ogre Under the Bed. We must take off our tinfoil hats, open the closet door, and look around. The sun is shining, the future awaits and we must dust ourselves off and get to work restoring our nation and becoming, once again, a nation where the future is a promise and, together, we can resume the upward trek toward what we know that it can be.
We can place our trust in our personal God and, thus cheered, tread with a smile and a song toward that promised "Shining City on a Hill" of legend, treasuring the Brotherhood of Man. Together we can banish that Ogre of the Bush Legacy, shine the brave light of day on our fears and realize that we have been left with the greatest gift of the Bush Legacy; "Thank God it's over!"
This writer is eighty years old and has spent a half century working with handicapped and deprived people and advocating on their behalf while caring for her own working-class family. She spends her "Sunset Years" in writing and struggling with The System.
March 21, 2010
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Toward the end of the reign of the Bush regime, Mr. Bush began to consider the "legacy" of his presidency, setting up a library to hold his papers and to assure that this nation would never forget his term in office. However, there is no way that the real legacy of his two-term rule would ever be memorialized in any facility bought and paid for by his political machine. He has made a mark on our American soul that will remain a very long time; like a large scar from an almost-fatal wound.
On September 11, 2001, the whole nation saw the awesome destruction of the World Trade Center. If not actually on the site, we saw it live on television or played and re-played on the news. The actual deed, followed by the speeches by President Bush and his followers and assistants, drove the knife of that legacy deep into the hearts of Americans everywhere. That legacy was a paralyzing fear; gut-wrenching, breath-taking, spine-tingling, blood-chilling FEAR!
To a generation that grew up with air-raid drills, stop-drop-and-cover admonitions pounded into our young consciousness, the horrors of Korea and Vietnam, and the seemingly never-ending Cold War, it took little chain-rattling for the fight-or-flight instinct to become activated. Add to that the patriotic adages that we have learned from history, "The Red, White, and Blue don't run!" and you have a compliant herd of sheep that will do as commanded by whomever is in charge.
Under that impetus Congress, for the first time in history, granted the President the unmitigated authority to go to war without a Constitutional mandate. In addition, as he did precisely this, not once but twice, they also handed him the national credit card with no limit. Nobody asked how much it would cost. Nobody asked whether our "all-volunteer military" was strong enough to fight a two-front war. Nobody dared suggest the reinstatement of the draft which had served this nation so well in the past. Instead, the National Guard was taken from their traditional obligations to protect the "home front" and sent to war. Armed militia were hired to supplement our forces and contracts were let for the furnishing of meals, transport, and other essential services, paid for by "credit card" and which remain unpaid.
The nation as a whole was deeply committed to the commands of The Ogre Under the Bed. Nobody but the few with immunity dared question any decision from the White House upon hearing the rattle of the chains. The Bill of Rights was shredded and the Constitution crumpled and tossed into the waste basket as Congress obediently passed the Patriot Act . All law enforcement in the country was bundled into a Department of Homeland Security and their focus was changed from one of catching crooks to catching "spooks". If you spoke out against the policies of the administration, you might find yourself restrained from receiving a passport or prevented from boarding an airplane. The Ogre was under your bed and he was listening and waiting for you to offend!
In addition, the Holy Ghost was implicated as the President roamed the world proclaiming that he was doing The Lord's Work. His words were accepted as the Word of God in churches throughout the land and the fear of retaliation according to the Good Book reinforced the Ogre Under the Bed. If you had not sufficient fear of the Ogre, the Devil would get you.
Eight years later, with a new President and a new spirit in the land, it was determined that the wars have reached their end and may be systematically ended. Now the people are suffering as the result of economic collapse brought on by the free-spending and the neglect of the previous administration, also that the "spooks" that must be vanquished are of the more psychological perspective.
The Republican members of Congress are still under the spell of the Ogre as they struggle against the programs that are needed to place the nation back on the right track, to bind up the wounds of war, attend to the long-neglected workers as they lose their jobs due to the Wall Street-instigated crash, and go about the business of caring for the citizens. Only now they are "afraid" that we will not be able to pay our bills and are "worried about the future." They seem lost and leaderless, unwilling or unable to resume their responsibilities of steering the nation without a real leader to tell them what to do.
The current President sees the world as it is rather than as it was in the middle of the last century and tries to move our gaze forward to building a better future. But first we must struggle with the Holy-Word-according-to-G-W-Bush as well as the Ogre Under the Bed. We must take off our tinfoil hats, open the closet door, and look around. The sun is shining, the future awaits and we must dust ourselves off and get to work restoring our nation and becoming, once again, a nation where the future is a promise and, together, we can resume the upward trek toward what we know that it can be.
We can place our trust in our personal God and, thus cheered, tread with a smile and a song toward that promised "Shining City on a Hill" of legend, treasuring the Brotherhood of Man. Together we can banish that Ogre of the Bush Legacy, shine the brave light of day on our fears and realize that we have been left with the greatest gift of the Bush Legacy; "Thank God it's over!"
This writer is eighty years old and has spent a half century working with handicapped and deprived people and advocating on their behalf while caring for her own working-class family. She spends her "Sunset Years" in writing and struggling with The System.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Seven Years
Seven years ago, yesterday, the war criminal bush launched the US invasion of Iraq.
Today, there is no doubt, or denying, that his administration knew that there was no justification, in neither US law, or international law, for the invasion.
Today, there is no doubt, or denying, that the US war criminals will not be prosecuted for their crimes. In fact, the bushistas are busily rewriting the history, and are being assisted in this by the CCMA*.
By giving prominent media exposure to the architects and apologists of the past 10 years is to condone and regularize the crimes they committed. The corporatists are protecting their own. Instead of the ridicule and the contempt that they deserve, they are feted and treated with utmost respect.
If we want to retain even a modicum of self-respect and freedom, we need to resist and stop this last attempt to break America to the Corporate Will.
Who is suffering in this economy? The corporatistas are doing quite well. It’s not them. We read of schools being closed, and teachers being fired all around this country. Record numbers of foreclosures, job losses, food pantries overwhelmed, increasingly large numbers of homeless families, crumbling infrastructure. And yet, they call for more cuts in these areas. They sure ain’t calling for tax increases for themselves, but have no problem increasing the working class burden. Higher fees, lower wages, and no safety net.
The full health care reform fiasco is just another example. Rep. Alan Grayson’s (D-Fla.) four page Medicare buy-in bill http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/10/grayson-offers-medicare-b_n_492831.html was all that was needed, and wanted by more than 70% of the American people. And yet what we got was this cumbersome guarantee of corporate profits.
It’s really not like this is being done on the sly. It’s right there if anybody cares to see. Now I’m not talking of a conspiracy. It’s that they just don’t care about those that they see as inferior. And for them, that is the working class, the poor, and anyone else who doesn’t accept their corporate world view. The tactics and strategy are based on only one thing. To maximize profits. Any cost that can be externalized adds to those profits.
And the tactic of divide and conquer has worked so well that we’ve got people running all over the country, pissed off, and not even knowing who or what they’re pissed off at or about. Unemployed workers condemning government workers and union workers. people demanding lower, or no, taxes, and demanding services that are paid for by those taxes, instead of calling for higher taxes for those who have benefited the most from our society. White against black. Citizens against immigrants, Christians against non-Christians. Workers against workers. And Americans against “the others”. All for corporate profit.
Which brings me back to the war and occupation of Iraq. What have the world’s peoples, or the Iraqi people gained from all the bloodshed? 4703 dead coalition troops, hundreds of thousands if not millions of Iraqi dead, millions of Iraqi wounded, maimed, and sickened, hundreds of billions dollars spent.
The corporatistas are doing quite well.
I condemn the war and occupation of Afghanistan as well, to clear up some confusion that some people seem to have of my position. But Afghanistan is not what I’m writing about today. I’m not even writing about Iraq. Others do it much better than I can.
The new "forgotten" war
Dahr Jamail
March 17, 2010
http://socialistworker.org/2010/03/17/new-forgotten-war
Can the 'Bush Lied' Deniers Handle the Truth?
David Corn
03/17/10
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/03/17/can-the-bush-lied-deniers-handle-the-truth/
* Consolidated Corporate Media of America, the official source for information.
Today, there is no doubt, or denying, that his administration knew that there was no justification, in neither US law, or international law, for the invasion.
Today, there is no doubt, or denying, that the US war criminals will not be prosecuted for their crimes. In fact, the bushistas are busily rewriting the history, and are being assisted in this by the CCMA*.
By giving prominent media exposure to the architects and apologists of the past 10 years is to condone and regularize the crimes they committed. The corporatists are protecting their own. Instead of the ridicule and the contempt that they deserve, they are feted and treated with utmost respect.
If we want to retain even a modicum of self-respect and freedom, we need to resist and stop this last attempt to break America to the Corporate Will.
Who is suffering in this economy? The corporatistas are doing quite well. It’s not them. We read of schools being closed, and teachers being fired all around this country. Record numbers of foreclosures, job losses, food pantries overwhelmed, increasingly large numbers of homeless families, crumbling infrastructure. And yet, they call for more cuts in these areas. They sure ain’t calling for tax increases for themselves, but have no problem increasing the working class burden. Higher fees, lower wages, and no safety net.
The full health care reform fiasco is just another example. Rep. Alan Grayson’s (D-Fla.) four page Medicare buy-in bill http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/10/grayson-offers-medicare-b_n_492831.html was all that was needed, and wanted by more than 70% of the American people. And yet what we got was this cumbersome guarantee of corporate profits.
It’s really not like this is being done on the sly. It’s right there if anybody cares to see. Now I’m not talking of a conspiracy. It’s that they just don’t care about those that they see as inferior. And for them, that is the working class, the poor, and anyone else who doesn’t accept their corporate world view. The tactics and strategy are based on only one thing. To maximize profits. Any cost that can be externalized adds to those profits.
And the tactic of divide and conquer has worked so well that we’ve got people running all over the country, pissed off, and not even knowing who or what they’re pissed off at or about. Unemployed workers condemning government workers and union workers. people demanding lower, or no, taxes, and demanding services that are paid for by those taxes, instead of calling for higher taxes for those who have benefited the most from our society. White against black. Citizens against immigrants, Christians against non-Christians. Workers against workers. And Americans against “the others”. All for corporate profit.
Which brings me back to the war and occupation of Iraq. What have the world’s peoples, or the Iraqi people gained from all the bloodshed? 4703 dead coalition troops, hundreds of thousands if not millions of Iraqi dead, millions of Iraqi wounded, maimed, and sickened, hundreds of billions dollars spent.
The corporatistas are doing quite well.
I condemn the war and occupation of Afghanistan as well, to clear up some confusion that some people seem to have of my position. But Afghanistan is not what I’m writing about today. I’m not even writing about Iraq. Others do it much better than I can.
The new "forgotten" war
Dahr Jamail
March 17, 2010
http://socialistworker.org/2010/03/17/new-forgotten-war
Can the 'Bush Lied' Deniers Handle the Truth?
David Corn
03/17/10
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/03/17/can-the-bush-lied-deniers-handle-the-truth/
* Consolidated Corporate Media of America, the official source for information.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
A Gathering of Vultures
by Mary Pitt
March 15, 2010
As the Liberals in Congress struggle against the Party-of-No Republicans and the Blue Dog DINOs, the people in the lower economic level are being picked of the last flesh on their living bones by the circling vultures. After they have lost almost everything they possess by the too-big-to-fail banks and investment companies, bled by the co-payments for essential medical care for their children, and either lost their homes in foreclosure or have trouble paying their rent, the vultures have gathered for the last pickings.
One cannot long watch television without the realization of precisely what the aims are of the remaining ghouls that dog their tracks. First and foremost are the "easy credit" advertisements by which they are bombarded. If you get a paycheck, you can get money quick to last until then. It only costs you a "little" more than you borrow, (only an APR of a hundred or two), and you can spend on anything you want. If you own a car, bring in your title and get the same sweet deal. The commercials depict happy people enjoying the prospect of living it up on all that "Easy Cash".
Congress is currently struggling with the task of regulating these vultures against those who think that the poor are not sufficiently important to protect. They appear to rest secure in their opinion that those who are dumb enough to fall for those deceptions deserve to be victimized. The fact that many may be so financially strapped in this "Land of Plenty" that they have no other avenue of survival.
Another source of income to the television channels are the advertisements telling those who have won lawsuits and have judgments which are to be paid over time that they don't have to wait for their money. They can really sell those judgments, (at discount prices, of course), and obtain a large amount of "cash now" with which they can "live it up" until it's all gone. They do not, ever, tell how much the discount will be and how much they will collect of the proceeds for corporate profit. Often, these judgments or annuities are the only source of supplemental income available to these people and they will suffer terribly by their loss but, what the hell, it's all "Free Enterprise"!
A third enticement, aimed the elderly, is one that I particularly find reprehensible. They dig up all the old has-beens like Pat Boone, Robert Wagner, or Peter Graves, who were the heart-throbs of our youth, to hawk the idea of "reverse mortgages" wherein they promise monthly stipends in return for signing a contract that allows the lending institutions to own your home when you die. Now, every elderly person whom I have met will tell you that they have made precise plans for whom they want to inherit from them and they will deprive themselves of essentials of life to retain their property for that purpose.
Further, this arrangement amounts to the bidding company actually wagering that you will not live very long because the more quickly you die, the more profit they will gain. Let us hope that most of these elderly have brains enough to know that, should they determine that they want to leave the old home place, that they will make more money by selling it outright, even if they themselves carry a contract for a balance. At least, they won't have to live the rest of their lives looking over their shoulders and wondering whether their "heirs:" are becoming impatient.
(To add insult to injury, they continually remind us of our advanced years by showing us how decrepit our once-upon-a-time have gone through the same deterioration that we must deal with every day. This comment from a person who refused to attend the 60-year class reunion because she prefers to recall the raucous friends of her youth rather than the old codgers who now creep around with canes and walkers. She prefers to remember the friends of her youth as vital and energetic as they were so long ago,)
(Note: Peter Graves has passed away since this writing and I, for one, will always remember him as the dashing and daring Mr. Phelps of "Mission Impossible" and not as the enfeebled huckster for reverse mortgages.)
As macabre as these three "vultures" may appear, there is still one that is so reprehensible that they don't even advertise. They merely contact the elderly personally in the effort to purchase their paid-up life insurance policies. The proposal is that they will discount the amount payable on your death and give you that amount "today". In return, they become the beneficiary of that policy and collect it only on your death. I can't speak for anyone else but it would seem that one could never again sleep comfortably at night.
While the comfortably wealthy worship at the altar of Capitalism and engage in the preservation of Free Enterprise while resisting any regulation of banks and other lending institutions. the sheep have already been stripped of their fleece and new ways are being developed to profit from the disposal of their bones. Meanwhile, the vultures go about their work of devouring whatever value remains of their being.
Does anybody out there care? Will the Senate shape up and pass the Consumer Financial Protection Act which has been passed by the House? Or will the Republicans continue the campaign to end the Class Warfare in their usual manner, by forcing the poor back to the status of serfs in bondage to the privileged?
Stay tuned.
This writer is eighty years old and has spent a half century working with handicapped and deprived people and advocating on their behalf while caring for her own working-class family. She spends her "Sunset Years" in writing and struggling with The System.
March 15, 2010
As the Liberals in Congress struggle against the Party-of-No Republicans and the Blue Dog DINOs, the people in the lower economic level are being picked of the last flesh on their living bones by the circling vultures. After they have lost almost everything they possess by the too-big-to-fail banks and investment companies, bled by the co-payments for essential medical care for their children, and either lost their homes in foreclosure or have trouble paying their rent, the vultures have gathered for the last pickings.
One cannot long watch television without the realization of precisely what the aims are of the remaining ghouls that dog their tracks. First and foremost are the "easy credit" advertisements by which they are bombarded. If you get a paycheck, you can get money quick to last until then. It only costs you a "little" more than you borrow, (only an APR of a hundred or two), and you can spend on anything you want. If you own a car, bring in your title and get the same sweet deal. The commercials depict happy people enjoying the prospect of living it up on all that "Easy Cash".
Congress is currently struggling with the task of regulating these vultures against those who think that the poor are not sufficiently important to protect. They appear to rest secure in their opinion that those who are dumb enough to fall for those deceptions deserve to be victimized. The fact that many may be so financially strapped in this "Land of Plenty" that they have no other avenue of survival.
Another source of income to the television channels are the advertisements telling those who have won lawsuits and have judgments which are to be paid over time that they don't have to wait for their money. They can really sell those judgments, (at discount prices, of course), and obtain a large amount of "cash now" with which they can "live it up" until it's all gone. They do not, ever, tell how much the discount will be and how much they will collect of the proceeds for corporate profit. Often, these judgments or annuities are the only source of supplemental income available to these people and they will suffer terribly by their loss but, what the hell, it's all "Free Enterprise"!
A third enticement, aimed the elderly, is one that I particularly find reprehensible. They dig up all the old has-beens like Pat Boone, Robert Wagner, or Peter Graves, who were the heart-throbs of our youth, to hawk the idea of "reverse mortgages" wherein they promise monthly stipends in return for signing a contract that allows the lending institutions to own your home when you die. Now, every elderly person whom I have met will tell you that they have made precise plans for whom they want to inherit from them and they will deprive themselves of essentials of life to retain their property for that purpose.
Further, this arrangement amounts to the bidding company actually wagering that you will not live very long because the more quickly you die, the more profit they will gain. Let us hope that most of these elderly have brains enough to know that, should they determine that they want to leave the old home place, that they will make more money by selling it outright, even if they themselves carry a contract for a balance. At least, they won't have to live the rest of their lives looking over their shoulders and wondering whether their "heirs:" are becoming impatient.
(To add insult to injury, they continually remind us of our advanced years by showing us how decrepit our once-upon-a-time have gone through the same deterioration that we must deal with every day. This comment from a person who refused to attend the 60-year class reunion because she prefers to recall the raucous friends of her youth rather than the old codgers who now creep around with canes and walkers. She prefers to remember the friends of her youth as vital and energetic as they were so long ago,)
(Note: Peter Graves has passed away since this writing and I, for one, will always remember him as the dashing and daring Mr. Phelps of "Mission Impossible" and not as the enfeebled huckster for reverse mortgages.)
As macabre as these three "vultures" may appear, there is still one that is so reprehensible that they don't even advertise. They merely contact the elderly personally in the effort to purchase their paid-up life insurance policies. The proposal is that they will discount the amount payable on your death and give you that amount "today". In return, they become the beneficiary of that policy and collect it only on your death. I can't speak for anyone else but it would seem that one could never again sleep comfortably at night.
While the comfortably wealthy worship at the altar of Capitalism and engage in the preservation of Free Enterprise while resisting any regulation of banks and other lending institutions. the sheep have already been stripped of their fleece and new ways are being developed to profit from the disposal of their bones. Meanwhile, the vultures go about their work of devouring whatever value remains of their being.
Does anybody out there care? Will the Senate shape up and pass the Consumer Financial Protection Act which has been passed by the House? Or will the Republicans continue the campaign to end the Class Warfare in their usual manner, by forcing the poor back to the status of serfs in bondage to the privileged?
Stay tuned.
This writer is eighty years old and has spent a half century working with handicapped and deprived people and advocating on their behalf while caring for her own working-class family. She spends her "Sunset Years" in writing and struggling with The System.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
The Real American Emergency
by Mary Pitt
March 10, 2010
While our president is involved in dealing with the many emergencies in which our nation is now foundering, he fails to see the most urgent one.
The dead numbered 137,000 per year through the years of 2000 to 2006, according to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Science and, as the depression continues to worsen, the numbers will climb even higher on an annual basis. The problem? Simply a lack of health insurance and the inability to obtain the needed care on an individual basis!
Granted, these people are the working poor and, thus, are "The Others". We all know who "The Others" are. They are the people who are not in "our neighborhood", the unseen people who keep our streets, our clothing, and our children clean, who cook and serve our food, who do the myriad of tasks that we are too busy to do or too comfortable to do for ourselves. They people our back rooms, out of sight, except on the streets where we hardly notice their presence.
They are not the elderly because the elderly have, at least, Medicare with which to maintain their simple lives. The people who are dying for want of care are not the young, healthy people but those who continue to work hard, working through the pains of incipient illnesses such as diabetes and cancer because they have neither the time nor the money to seek medical care.
Suggesting that they should carry private-pay insurance is futile because they simply do not have the funds to pay up to $15,000 per year that would be necessary for a family policy and the idea of fining them for not doing so would also result in further health problems with their undernourished and, possibly, homeless children. We proclaim our care for children by passing the S-CHIP legislation which will allow them medical care but their empty bellies receive nothing but good wishes if their parents work too hard and earn too little to provide them an adequate diet. The dental and eye care provided for them are rudimentary and all medical appointments of any kind necessitate a cash co-payment.
Even before the onset of the "recession", bankruptcies due to medical expenses were a ballooning problem not necessarily caused by the lack of insurance but by the deductibles and co-payments that those policies require. An elderly person in the United States must live on about $1200 per month, less the deductions for premiums for Medicare Parts B and D which combined total well over $100 per month. From the remaining $1,000 dollars or so, these people are required to pay an additional deductible for their medications, for each doctor's appointment, and for necessary hospitalizations.
In addition, they face the feared "donut hole" which causes them to end each year with the problem of whether to buy the medication upon which their very lives depend or to pay for their rent, utilities, and food. At this level of Social Security, there are few states which allow them assistance from Medicaid.
Every elderly person lives with the fear that they will have a "dizzy spell" or a minor fall which will prompt some kind-hearted person to transport them to an emergency room where a caring physician may decide to keep them overnight for "observation". Upon release from the hospital the next day, they know they will be burdened with a bill, which they must pay, in excess of $2,000 after Medicare.. (This would be another two months' Social Security allowance that must be taken from their necessary expenses.) Hard as they may try and regardless of their own desire to avoid it, bankruptcy and total devastation looms as an inevitability.
There are those who are obsessed with the possibility that single-payer medical insurance will cause an increase in taxes. However, if they were to add to their annual tax bill the amounts that they now pay for insurance premiums on a private basis, they would realize that the question should be given further consideration. The government already pays 60% of the health care bills in this country while there are many with no coverage at all. If the amounts that are paid to private insurance plans were added to this amount, there would be little or no tax increase to provide complete coverage to all the rest. In addition, the employers who have been paying for medical insurance might be amenable to increasing wages and improving the amounts in the paychecks.
Rather than the "competition" which has been touted as a way to cut the cost of medical insurance, the companies are in constant negotiations as first one company and then another embarks on a plan of conquest They buy up or take over smaller companies. It would not be much of an exaggeration to compare the insurance situation with that of the nation's major banks, and for the same reason. The point of the endeavor is to create a monopoly wherein one or two major corporations control health care and can name their own price.
However, a single-payer plan could roll together the amounts presently spent in Federally-funded health care along with the subsidies reserved for those providing Medicare Part D, the amount paid for private insurance premiums, and 30% charged out by those companies for administrative salaries, advertising, and profits, there would be a net increase in available funds of some 350 billion dollars per year to apply toward services for the uninsured. Any actual increases in taxation beyond rolling in the money now spent on insurance premiums would not be a great burden but would literally save the lives of many Americans and create the healthy citizenry that will be required in the rebuilding of our nation. As regular examinations, preventive care, and early diagnoses are available, the cost would go down over the years, relieving the taxpayers of much of their burden.
If the President would verify these facts through the Washington number-crunchers and convince the Democrats in Congress, the answer would truly be a "no-brainer". The question would arise as to the effect on the economy of the loss to the insurance companies. Then, as now, they could contract with the government to administer this Federal program in order to mitigate their losses. However, keeping the current system to protect the private insurance industry can only duplicate the results of the "too big to fail" bank bailouts. If they have become so greedy that they must continue to fatten their pockets with the life-blood of the people of America, perhaps their "failure" would benefit the future of America.
Much has been said and written about "the polls" which show a loss of support for the "health reform" effort in Congress. This is far from that which the people envisioned when they turned out in record numbers to assure the election of Barack Obama. It was begun timidly and fought blindly by the opposition who were not yet recovered from their Rovian trance of "every man for himself". They recite by rote the right to "own your own insurance policy" when, in fact, they know that they are only renting them for so long as they pay the ever-increasing premiums and don't have a serious illness.
We can only urge President Obama to "get real" and prepare to proclaim this National Emergency and to exercise his executive powers much as President Bush did to deal with the National Emergency in his time. This crisis is every bit as serious as that faced by the nation in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. It must be treated as seriously before many more people die as the result of it.
This writer is eighty years old and has spent a half century working with handicapped and deprived people and advocating on their behalf while caring for her own working-class family. She spends her "Sunset Years" in writing and struggling with The System.
March 10, 2010
While our president is involved in dealing with the many emergencies in which our nation is now foundering, he fails to see the most urgent one.
The dead numbered 137,000 per year through the years of 2000 to 2006, according to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Science and, as the depression continues to worsen, the numbers will climb even higher on an annual basis. The problem? Simply a lack of health insurance and the inability to obtain the needed care on an individual basis!
Granted, these people are the working poor and, thus, are "The Others". We all know who "The Others" are. They are the people who are not in "our neighborhood", the unseen people who keep our streets, our clothing, and our children clean, who cook and serve our food, who do the myriad of tasks that we are too busy to do or too comfortable to do for ourselves. They people our back rooms, out of sight, except on the streets where we hardly notice their presence.
They are not the elderly because the elderly have, at least, Medicare with which to maintain their simple lives. The people who are dying for want of care are not the young, healthy people but those who continue to work hard, working through the pains of incipient illnesses such as diabetes and cancer because they have neither the time nor the money to seek medical care.
Suggesting that they should carry private-pay insurance is futile because they simply do not have the funds to pay up to $15,000 per year that would be necessary for a family policy and the idea of fining them for not doing so would also result in further health problems with their undernourished and, possibly, homeless children. We proclaim our care for children by passing the S-CHIP legislation which will allow them medical care but their empty bellies receive nothing but good wishes if their parents work too hard and earn too little to provide them an adequate diet. The dental and eye care provided for them are rudimentary and all medical appointments of any kind necessitate a cash co-payment.
Even before the onset of the "recession", bankruptcies due to medical expenses were a ballooning problem not necessarily caused by the lack of insurance but by the deductibles and co-payments that those policies require. An elderly person in the United States must live on about $1200 per month, less the deductions for premiums for Medicare Parts B and D which combined total well over $100 per month. From the remaining $1,000 dollars or so, these people are required to pay an additional deductible for their medications, for each doctor's appointment, and for necessary hospitalizations.
In addition, they face the feared "donut hole" which causes them to end each year with the problem of whether to buy the medication upon which their very lives depend or to pay for their rent, utilities, and food. At this level of Social Security, there are few states which allow them assistance from Medicaid.
Every elderly person lives with the fear that they will have a "dizzy spell" or a minor fall which will prompt some kind-hearted person to transport them to an emergency room where a caring physician may decide to keep them overnight for "observation". Upon release from the hospital the next day, they know they will be burdened with a bill, which they must pay, in excess of $2,000 after Medicare.. (This would be another two months' Social Security allowance that must be taken from their necessary expenses.) Hard as they may try and regardless of their own desire to avoid it, bankruptcy and total devastation looms as an inevitability.
There are those who are obsessed with the possibility that single-payer medical insurance will cause an increase in taxes. However, if they were to add to their annual tax bill the amounts that they now pay for insurance premiums on a private basis, they would realize that the question should be given further consideration. The government already pays 60% of the health care bills in this country while there are many with no coverage at all. If the amounts that are paid to private insurance plans were added to this amount, there would be little or no tax increase to provide complete coverage to all the rest. In addition, the employers who have been paying for medical insurance might be amenable to increasing wages and improving the amounts in the paychecks.
Rather than the "competition" which has been touted as a way to cut the cost of medical insurance, the companies are in constant negotiations as first one company and then another embarks on a plan of conquest They buy up or take over smaller companies. It would not be much of an exaggeration to compare the insurance situation with that of the nation's major banks, and for the same reason. The point of the endeavor is to create a monopoly wherein one or two major corporations control health care and can name their own price.
However, a single-payer plan could roll together the amounts presently spent in Federally-funded health care along with the subsidies reserved for those providing Medicare Part D, the amount paid for private insurance premiums, and 30% charged out by those companies for administrative salaries, advertising, and profits, there would be a net increase in available funds of some 350 billion dollars per year to apply toward services for the uninsured. Any actual increases in taxation beyond rolling in the money now spent on insurance premiums would not be a great burden but would literally save the lives of many Americans and create the healthy citizenry that will be required in the rebuilding of our nation. As regular examinations, preventive care, and early diagnoses are available, the cost would go down over the years, relieving the taxpayers of much of their burden.
If the President would verify these facts through the Washington number-crunchers and convince the Democrats in Congress, the answer would truly be a "no-brainer". The question would arise as to the effect on the economy of the loss to the insurance companies. Then, as now, they could contract with the government to administer this Federal program in order to mitigate their losses. However, keeping the current system to protect the private insurance industry can only duplicate the results of the "too big to fail" bank bailouts. If they have become so greedy that they must continue to fatten their pockets with the life-blood of the people of America, perhaps their "failure" would benefit the future of America.
Much has been said and written about "the polls" which show a loss of support for the "health reform" effort in Congress. This is far from that which the people envisioned when they turned out in record numbers to assure the election of Barack Obama. It was begun timidly and fought blindly by the opposition who were not yet recovered from their Rovian trance of "every man for himself". They recite by rote the right to "own your own insurance policy" when, in fact, they know that they are only renting them for so long as they pay the ever-increasing premiums and don't have a serious illness.
We can only urge President Obama to "get real" and prepare to proclaim this National Emergency and to exercise his executive powers much as President Bush did to deal with the National Emergency in his time. This crisis is every bit as serious as that faced by the nation in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. It must be treated as seriously before many more people die as the result of it.
This writer is eighty years old and has spent a half century working with handicapped and deprived people and advocating on their behalf while caring for her own working-class family. She spends her "Sunset Years" in writing and struggling with The System.
Monday, March 08, 2010
From 'Fired Up and Ready to Go'
to 'Tired Out and Staying Home'
by Joseph Palermo
Published on Monday, March 8, 2010 by Huffington Post
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/03/08-4
There's been a lot of commentary about President Barack Obama's failure to construct a winning "narrative" for the elections of 2010. In 2008, there were millions of people "fired up and ready to go." But after a year plus of the Beltway-Rahm Emanuel strategy of never exposing oneself to political risk the grassroots energy of the campaign has been allowed simply to dissipate. Robert Reich argues that "if there was ever a time to connect the dots and make the case for government as a means of protecting the public from [corporate] forces. It is now." But at this point, about seven months before the midterms, transforming Americans' view of government is a tall task, especially when many of the George W. Bush policies have clearly prevailed. The problem with Obama's "narrative" lies in the substance of what has transpired over the past year.
1). Those who wanted single-payer health care didn't even get a seat at the table, (even though it's the most fiscally responsible of the choices over the long term). And then those who wanted a "public option" or a "Medicare buy-in" had their hopes dashed. These decisions didn't do much to keep health care reform advocates fired up and ready to go.
2). Teachers and educators thought there'd be an Education Department in the Obama Administration that would move in a new direction away from Bush's failed "No Child Left Behind" policies. But all we've gotten is more teacher bashing, more union bashing, and more calls for privatization. Arne Duncan is no friend of educators. Just ask Diane Ravitch. And how can you undermine teachers' unions while claiming to be a big friend of organized labor?
3). In Afghanistan there's been an expensive escalation of the war that simply throws good money after bad. And the increase in drone attacks has only widened the war into Pakistan. It's far too late to begin celebrating "victories" in year nine of a stalemated guerrilla war.
4). There have been no prosecutions (or even wrist slaps) of people like John Yoo and other Bush officials who used chicanery to turn the United States into a nation that tortures people and denies the writ of habeas corpus. The Sunday New York Times featured a full-page advertisement from the ACLU with a series of photos where Obama's face morphs into Bush's to criticize the continuation of the Bush detention policies.
5). Every time some bureaucrat from the Obama Administration reports that the recession is "over" it only rubs salt in people's wounds. When local communities across the country are firing teachers, civil servants, and even cops due to the fiscal catastrophe, along with the steep drop in housing prices and continued high unemployment, it leads people to scratch their heads and ask if the politicians in Washington (namely, Democrats) are even on the same planet.
6). There's been no progress in passing the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which was one of the key drivers of union support for Obama in 2008. EFCA is the only measure that has a chance of slowing down the decline of real wages and living standards as America continues its long slide into becoming a low-skill, low-wage society. Everyone knows the Senate is going to step all over this vital labor-friendly legislation regardless of how many envelopes are licked or doors knocked on.
7). There's been no serious reforms enacted to rein in the financial services industry. The fevered trading in risky derivatives that helped tank the economy is continuing unimpeded by any new regulations. Between 2008 and 2009, the average Wall Street bonus increased by 17 percent, at exactly the same time just about everyone else in America has seen their incomes drop. The Wall Street bankers that brought down the economy have been rewarded for their colossal failure with bailouts and loan guarantees. Nobody who created the mess has been held accountable. Not Henry Paulson, not Christopher Cox, not Alan Greenspan, not Goldman Sachs. Nobody. Leaving people to wonder: Where the hell is Obama's SEC?
8). Cap and Trade? Forget about it.
So the question is: Who among Obama's base is going to be "fired up and ready to go" for the November midterm elections?
During the Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush years the center of American politics was pushed about a hundred degrees to the Right. Obama gets elected and tries to move it about a half degree leftward and all we hear are screams of "socialism!" In reality, the only group to receive "socialism" so far from this administration has been the biggest investment banks on Wall Street.
Former Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey believes the problem started on January 21, 2009 while he offers up some of the stupidest political "advice" I've ever heard. "They made a big mistake right out of the box with the Inaugural Address," a New York Times article quotes Kerrey as saying, because a president who pledged "bipartisanship" should not have disparaged the previous administration. By Kerrey's logic I suppose FDR shouldn't have criticized Herbert Hoover either. (Memo to Democrats: Don't take political "advice" from Democrats from Nebraska.)
The Obama White House reportedly has 13 million supporters on a vast email list. But those emails won't mean much if you turn on the TV and see Obama campaigning for Blanche Lincoln. The anger among voters is palpable out there. Much of it is neither "left" nor "right." At this point, the Democrats have not only failed to tap into this anger, as the party in power, they're rapidly becoming the focus of it.
Associate Professor, History, CSU, Sacramento. Bachelor's degrees in Sociology and Anthropology from UC Santa Cruz, Master's degree in History from San Jose State University, Master's degree and Doctorate in American History from Cornell University. Expertise includes political history, presidential politics, presidential war powers, social movements of the 20th century, movements of the 1960s, civil rights, and foreign policy history.
by Joseph Palermo
Published on Monday, March 8, 2010 by Huffington Post
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/03/08-4
There's been a lot of commentary about President Barack Obama's failure to construct a winning "narrative" for the elections of 2010. In 2008, there were millions of people "fired up and ready to go." But after a year plus of the Beltway-Rahm Emanuel strategy of never exposing oneself to political risk the grassroots energy of the campaign has been allowed simply to dissipate. Robert Reich argues that "if there was ever a time to connect the dots and make the case for government as a means of protecting the public from [corporate] forces. It is now." But at this point, about seven months before the midterms, transforming Americans' view of government is a tall task, especially when many of the George W. Bush policies have clearly prevailed. The problem with Obama's "narrative" lies in the substance of what has transpired over the past year.
1). Those who wanted single-payer health care didn't even get a seat at the table, (even though it's the most fiscally responsible of the choices over the long term). And then those who wanted a "public option" or a "Medicare buy-in" had their hopes dashed. These decisions didn't do much to keep health care reform advocates fired up and ready to go.
2). Teachers and educators thought there'd be an Education Department in the Obama Administration that would move in a new direction away from Bush's failed "No Child Left Behind" policies. But all we've gotten is more teacher bashing, more union bashing, and more calls for privatization. Arne Duncan is no friend of educators. Just ask Diane Ravitch. And how can you undermine teachers' unions while claiming to be a big friend of organized labor?
3). In Afghanistan there's been an expensive escalation of the war that simply throws good money after bad. And the increase in drone attacks has only widened the war into Pakistan. It's far too late to begin celebrating "victories" in year nine of a stalemated guerrilla war.
4). There have been no prosecutions (or even wrist slaps) of people like John Yoo and other Bush officials who used chicanery to turn the United States into a nation that tortures people and denies the writ of habeas corpus. The Sunday New York Times featured a full-page advertisement from the ACLU with a series of photos where Obama's face morphs into Bush's to criticize the continuation of the Bush detention policies.
5). Every time some bureaucrat from the Obama Administration reports that the recession is "over" it only rubs salt in people's wounds. When local communities across the country are firing teachers, civil servants, and even cops due to the fiscal catastrophe, along with the steep drop in housing prices and continued high unemployment, it leads people to scratch their heads and ask if the politicians in Washington (namely, Democrats) are even on the same planet.
6). There's been no progress in passing the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which was one of the key drivers of union support for Obama in 2008. EFCA is the only measure that has a chance of slowing down the decline of real wages and living standards as America continues its long slide into becoming a low-skill, low-wage society. Everyone knows the Senate is going to step all over this vital labor-friendly legislation regardless of how many envelopes are licked or doors knocked on.
7). There's been no serious reforms enacted to rein in the financial services industry. The fevered trading in risky derivatives that helped tank the economy is continuing unimpeded by any new regulations. Between 2008 and 2009, the average Wall Street bonus increased by 17 percent, at exactly the same time just about everyone else in America has seen their incomes drop. The Wall Street bankers that brought down the economy have been rewarded for their colossal failure with bailouts and loan guarantees. Nobody who created the mess has been held accountable. Not Henry Paulson, not Christopher Cox, not Alan Greenspan, not Goldman Sachs. Nobody. Leaving people to wonder: Where the hell is Obama's SEC?
8). Cap and Trade? Forget about it.
So the question is: Who among Obama's base is going to be "fired up and ready to go" for the November midterm elections?
During the Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush years the center of American politics was pushed about a hundred degrees to the Right. Obama gets elected and tries to move it about a half degree leftward and all we hear are screams of "socialism!" In reality, the only group to receive "socialism" so far from this administration has been the biggest investment banks on Wall Street.
Former Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey believes the problem started on January 21, 2009 while he offers up some of the stupidest political "advice" I've ever heard. "They made a big mistake right out of the box with the Inaugural Address," a New York Times article quotes Kerrey as saying, because a president who pledged "bipartisanship" should not have disparaged the previous administration. By Kerrey's logic I suppose FDR shouldn't have criticized Herbert Hoover either. (Memo to Democrats: Don't take political "advice" from Democrats from Nebraska.)
The Obama White House reportedly has 13 million supporters on a vast email list. But those emails won't mean much if you turn on the TV and see Obama campaigning for Blanche Lincoln. The anger among voters is palpable out there. Much of it is neither "left" nor "right." At this point, the Democrats have not only failed to tap into this anger, as the party in power, they're rapidly becoming the focus of it.
Associate Professor, History, CSU, Sacramento. Bachelor's degrees in Sociology and Anthropology from UC Santa Cruz, Master's degree in History from San Jose State University, Master's degree and Doctorate in American History from Cornell University. Expertise includes political history, presidential politics, presidential war powers, social movements of the 20th century, movements of the 1960s, civil rights, and foreign policy history.
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Chilly Scenes of Winter:
A Brief Imperial Tour d'Horizon
Written By Chris Floyd
Tuesday, 02 March 2010 14:24
http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/1936-chilly-scenes-of-winter-a-brief-imperial-tour-dhorizon.html
1. Occupational Hazards
As'ad AbuKhalil's headline on his brief post says it all: "Tragic accidents happen – every single day." He is referring to the latest killing of civilians by American occupation troops – not in Afghanistan this time, but in the now-forgotten war in Iraq, where death, corruption, repression and blowback are still raging.
2. Tony Blair: Liar, No. 876
It turns out that Tony Blair was told years before the Iraq invasion – in fact, even before the 9/11 attacks "that changed the world" and "made everything different" – that invading Iraq would be illegal (i.e., a Nuremberg-level war crime), as well as costly, destablizing and ineffective. This is revealed in documents from 2000 which the Independent has obtained, even though the "blue-ribbon" Chilcot Inquiry has refused to release it. What's more, the documents give the lie to Blair's recent testimony to the panel, and his claims elsewhere, that he had never discussed using troops to remove Saddam Hussein until after 9/11. Tony Blair, a liar? Imagine that!
3. All the Warmongering That's Fit to Print
Peter Casey at Antiwar.com does a remarkable thing: he actually reads the recent IAEA report, and finds that the New York Times deliberately distorted, even falsified the report's findings, in order to demonize Iran and mendaciously inflame fears of mad mullahs dropping nukes on America's holy heartland, and its plucky little outpost over in Israel. The NYT, plumping for imperial war? Imagine that!
4. Suburban Warfare
The Los Angeles Times brings us yet another story about America's brave, brave long-distance warriors: the Homeric heroes who sit in front of computer screens 10,000 miles away from battle, push buttons to kill people with robot-fired weapons, then go home to cozy suburban homes. Naturally, the story focuses on the great stress suffered by these bold 'soldiers,' as they go from shredding the viscera of some ragged Afghan walking around in his native land to pitching a ball with Junior in the backyard. In 10 years time, or less, most of our imperial slaughter will be carried out this way: no muss, no fuss, no risk, no mess – except for those piles of viscera on the other end.
5. Package Deal
Chris Hedges reminds us of why we should boycott FedEx, and how the unchallenged ascendancy of corporate power is, literally, crippling and killing working folk.
6. The Bitter End
Juan Cole brings word of a learned Theban at Harvard who has come up with a novel solution for the Middle East crisis: stop feeding the Palestinians, so they will quit breeding. Harvard Fellow Martin Kramer goes on to laud Israel's strangulation of Gaza for helping "break Gaza's runaway population growth." It is of course superfluous in us to point out that the deliberate decimation of a people by starvation and neglect is not unknown in recent history, and was in fact the first fatal step toward a somewhat more – how to put it? – final solution to a religio-ethnic conflict. The ironies here, as in so many policies of the plucky little outpost, are the bitterest imaginable.
Written By Chris Floyd
Tuesday, 02 March 2010 14:24
http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/1936-chilly-scenes-of-winter-a-brief-imperial-tour-dhorizon.html
1. Occupational Hazards
As'ad AbuKhalil's headline on his brief post says it all: "Tragic accidents happen – every single day." He is referring to the latest killing of civilians by American occupation troops – not in Afghanistan this time, but in the now-forgotten war in Iraq, where death, corruption, repression and blowback are still raging.
2. Tony Blair: Liar, No. 876
It turns out that Tony Blair was told years before the Iraq invasion – in fact, even before the 9/11 attacks "that changed the world" and "made everything different" – that invading Iraq would be illegal (i.e., a Nuremberg-level war crime), as well as costly, destablizing and ineffective. This is revealed in documents from 2000 which the Independent has obtained, even though the "blue-ribbon" Chilcot Inquiry has refused to release it. What's more, the documents give the lie to Blair's recent testimony to the panel, and his claims elsewhere, that he had never discussed using troops to remove Saddam Hussein until after 9/11. Tony Blair, a liar? Imagine that!
3. All the Warmongering That's Fit to Print
Peter Casey at Antiwar.com does a remarkable thing: he actually reads the recent IAEA report, and finds that the New York Times deliberately distorted, even falsified the report's findings, in order to demonize Iran and mendaciously inflame fears of mad mullahs dropping nukes on America's holy heartland, and its plucky little outpost over in Israel. The NYT, plumping for imperial war? Imagine that!
4. Suburban Warfare
The Los Angeles Times brings us yet another story about America's brave, brave long-distance warriors: the Homeric heroes who sit in front of computer screens 10,000 miles away from battle, push buttons to kill people with robot-fired weapons, then go home to cozy suburban homes. Naturally, the story focuses on the great stress suffered by these bold 'soldiers,' as they go from shredding the viscera of some ragged Afghan walking around in his native land to pitching a ball with Junior in the backyard. In 10 years time, or less, most of our imperial slaughter will be carried out this way: no muss, no fuss, no risk, no mess – except for those piles of viscera on the other end.
5. Package Deal
Chris Hedges reminds us of why we should boycott FedEx, and how the unchallenged ascendancy of corporate power is, literally, crippling and killing working folk.
6. The Bitter End
Juan Cole brings word of a learned Theban at Harvard who has come up with a novel solution for the Middle East crisis: stop feeding the Palestinians, so they will quit breeding. Harvard Fellow Martin Kramer goes on to laud Israel's strangulation of Gaza for helping "break Gaza's runaway population growth." It is of course superfluous in us to point out that the deliberate decimation of a people by starvation and neglect is not unknown in recent history, and was in fact the first fatal step toward a somewhat more – how to put it? – final solution to a religio-ethnic conflict. The ironies here, as in so many policies of the plucky little outpost, are the bitterest imaginable.
Monday, March 01, 2010
Jobless benefits cut off for a million US workers
1 March 2010
Patrick Martin
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/mar2010/pers-m01.shtml
Inaction by the US Senate last week will result in the cutoff of extended unemployment benefits and COBRA health care coverage to more than one million workers. The cutoff, which began to take effect Sunday night, demonstrates the unbridgeable social gulf between the working class and the denizens of Capitol Hill, both Democrats and Republicans.
The bill to extend unemployment benefits and COBRA coverage was blocked by Republican Senator Jim Bunning, an arch-reactionary from Kentucky who took advantage of a Senate rule requiring unanimous consent to bring the legislation to a vote before the weekend.
Bunning, who is not running for reelection, was contemptuous of the suffering that he was helping inflict on more than one million workers, including an estimated 60,000 from his home state. He demanded that Senate Democrats agree to pay for the extended benefits without creating new debt, and declared that his actions were intended “to send a message to the American people.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Majority Whip Richard Durbin repeatedly called the bill up for a vote. Each time it was blocked by Bunning’s voiced objection. But the Democratic Senate leaders declined to declare his action a filibuster and invoke cloture, although the required 60-vote majority would have been easily attainable.
Under Senate rules, cloture would have led to 30 hours of debate on the bill, followed by a vote. This process would have avoided the cutoff of benefits, but would have caused senators to miss their flights home for the weekend.
The Democratic leadership calculated that by allowing Bunning to block the extension they would be able to put the Republican minority in a bad light. Reid, Durbin and Vice President Joseph Biden issued hypocritical statements denouncing Bunning, but there was no move to invoke cloture.
Instead, the Democrats said they would bring the bill up again next week. Responding to the political embarrassment, Republican Whip Jon Kyl said Sunday that while he supported Bunning in principle, the Republicans would vote to approve a 30-day extension for the unemployment program while further negotiations were conducted on a bipartisan bill to extend the program for an entire year.
The expiration of the unemployment extension will have an enormous impact on working people, particularly in the states hardest hit by the collapse of manufacturing employment. Michigan, for instance, has 300,000 workers receiving extended benefits under the federal program that has been at least temporarily shut down.
An estimated 400,000 workers will lose their unemployment benefits during the first two weeks of March if the extension is not quickly approved. If congressional inaction continues, that number will grow exponentially to nearly three million workers by May, according to the Department of Labor.
Over 11 million workers are currently collecting unemployment compensation--the first 26 weeks from their state government, and thereafter from the federal program of extended benefits.
Economic figures released last week point to a continuation of high unemployment rates for the foreseeable future. Among the data: new home sales plunged 11.2 percent in January from December, hitting the lowest level in 50 years; the February consumer confidence index fell to the lowest level since 1983; new jobless claims for the week ending February 19 shot up by 22,000, confounding forecasts of a decline.
At a minimum, the Senate is not expected to reach a final vote on the extended benefits until the week of March 8, meaning those receiving benefits will lose them for at least one week. Given the fragile household budgets of workers who have been jobless for six months or more, the loss of one benefit check can mean failure to make a utility or mortgage payment, and potentially the shutoff of utilities, in the middle of winter, or the beginning of foreclosure proceedings.
Even if the bill passes the Senate, it will only provide for an extension of benefits through April 5, meaning that jobless workers will face a new crisis deadline in little more than a month.
No senator, Republican or Democrat, will return home to a house that is facing foreclosure or lacking heat because of a utility shutoff. The majority of senators are millionaires, and all of them owe their allegiance to the financial aristocracy.
No parliamentary obstacles are allowed to stand in the way of serving the vital interests of Wall Street or the national-security apparatus which defends the profits of corporate America. A case in point: President Obama adjourned his televised health care summit Thursday so that the House members in attendance could march over to the Capitol and cast their votes in favor of the extension of the USA Patriot Act, which gives unprecedented spying powers to the National Security Agency, FBI and other federal security agencies.
No such priority was given to ensuring that the long-term unemployed would continue to receive the pittance they are being provided under the extended benefits program.
Patrick Martin
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/mar2010/pers-m01.shtml
Inaction by the US Senate last week will result in the cutoff of extended unemployment benefits and COBRA health care coverage to more than one million workers. The cutoff, which began to take effect Sunday night, demonstrates the unbridgeable social gulf between the working class and the denizens of Capitol Hill, both Democrats and Republicans.
The bill to extend unemployment benefits and COBRA coverage was blocked by Republican Senator Jim Bunning, an arch-reactionary from Kentucky who took advantage of a Senate rule requiring unanimous consent to bring the legislation to a vote before the weekend.
Bunning, who is not running for reelection, was contemptuous of the suffering that he was helping inflict on more than one million workers, including an estimated 60,000 from his home state. He demanded that Senate Democrats agree to pay for the extended benefits without creating new debt, and declared that his actions were intended “to send a message to the American people.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Majority Whip Richard Durbin repeatedly called the bill up for a vote. Each time it was blocked by Bunning’s voiced objection. But the Democratic Senate leaders declined to declare his action a filibuster and invoke cloture, although the required 60-vote majority would have been easily attainable.
Under Senate rules, cloture would have led to 30 hours of debate on the bill, followed by a vote. This process would have avoided the cutoff of benefits, but would have caused senators to miss their flights home for the weekend.
The Democratic leadership calculated that by allowing Bunning to block the extension they would be able to put the Republican minority in a bad light. Reid, Durbin and Vice President Joseph Biden issued hypocritical statements denouncing Bunning, but there was no move to invoke cloture.
Instead, the Democrats said they would bring the bill up again next week. Responding to the political embarrassment, Republican Whip Jon Kyl said Sunday that while he supported Bunning in principle, the Republicans would vote to approve a 30-day extension for the unemployment program while further negotiations were conducted on a bipartisan bill to extend the program for an entire year.
The expiration of the unemployment extension will have an enormous impact on working people, particularly in the states hardest hit by the collapse of manufacturing employment. Michigan, for instance, has 300,000 workers receiving extended benefits under the federal program that has been at least temporarily shut down.
An estimated 400,000 workers will lose their unemployment benefits during the first two weeks of March if the extension is not quickly approved. If congressional inaction continues, that number will grow exponentially to nearly three million workers by May, according to the Department of Labor.
Over 11 million workers are currently collecting unemployment compensation--the first 26 weeks from their state government, and thereafter from the federal program of extended benefits.
Economic figures released last week point to a continuation of high unemployment rates for the foreseeable future. Among the data: new home sales plunged 11.2 percent in January from December, hitting the lowest level in 50 years; the February consumer confidence index fell to the lowest level since 1983; new jobless claims for the week ending February 19 shot up by 22,000, confounding forecasts of a decline.
At a minimum, the Senate is not expected to reach a final vote on the extended benefits until the week of March 8, meaning those receiving benefits will lose them for at least one week. Given the fragile household budgets of workers who have been jobless for six months or more, the loss of one benefit check can mean failure to make a utility or mortgage payment, and potentially the shutoff of utilities, in the middle of winter, or the beginning of foreclosure proceedings.
Even if the bill passes the Senate, it will only provide for an extension of benefits through April 5, meaning that jobless workers will face a new crisis deadline in little more than a month.
No senator, Republican or Democrat, will return home to a house that is facing foreclosure or lacking heat because of a utility shutoff. The majority of senators are millionaires, and all of them owe their allegiance to the financial aristocracy.
No parliamentary obstacles are allowed to stand in the way of serving the vital interests of Wall Street or the national-security apparatus which defends the profits of corporate America. A case in point: President Obama adjourned his televised health care summit Thursday so that the House members in attendance could march over to the Capitol and cast their votes in favor of the extension of the USA Patriot Act, which gives unprecedented spying powers to the National Security Agency, FBI and other federal security agencies.
No such priority was given to ensuring that the long-term unemployed would continue to receive the pittance they are being provided under the extended benefits program.
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