Month: December 2009

I’m a New York state resident. Today I’ve received three robo-calls from the infamous National Organization for Marriage (NOM) (well known supporter of Carrie Prejean until her porn videos and lewd pictures started appearing on the internet). The automated speaker keeps asking me if I’m registered to vote in New York … at which point I hang up.

Is anyone else in NY (or anywhere else) receiving these calls, and if you have actually listened all the way through to the bitter end, what exactly is the point?

Update [2009-12-1 15:56:40 by Steven D]: Nevermind. I think I found my answer:

NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR MARRIAGE SENDS A MESSAGE TO NEW YORK STATE GOP LEGISLATORS: “Vote for Gay Marriage and We Will Fund a Primary Challenge.”

WASHINGTON – Following up on its successful campaign to defeat Dede Scozzafava in NY-23, The National Organization for Marriage’s (NOM) Executive Director Brian Brown announced plans to build a $500,000 war chest to fund a primary challenge to any Republican senator who votes for gay marriage – regardless of the outcome of Tuesday’s vote in the State Senate.

“There is no Republican Senate district in New York where the majority of people support gay marriage. Maine has made that very clear,” said Brian Brown. “The GOP should learn from Dede Scozzafava’s experience: voting for gay marriage does not pay.”

50 percent of voters who abandoned Dede Scozzafava to vote for Doug Hoffman said that Dede’s vote for gay marriage was a significant factor, according to a NOM poll of voters in NY-23 released on Election Day.

While we are making significant strides in leveraging our economy—and our country— out of a very difficult time period for millions of people, we need to be cognizant of how we do so. As new stimulus-funded opportunities take shape, communities and groups who are traditionally marginalized, historically overlooked, and most affected by the recession deserve priority in seizing these opportunities. However, it is up to us to ensure that the recovery makes investments that are equitable, transparent, and fair.

Instead of remaining in a gray economy (http://www.arc.org/downloads/Green_Toolkit_R3.pdf, pg 6)—one where the environment is polluted with toxins and waste, and not all jobs offer advancement, stability, and personal development— the eco-friendly, green economy has great potential to improve not only the environment, but the state of the economy as well. As outlined in Applied Research Center’s November 2009 Green Equity Toolkit (arc.org/greenjobs), the benefits of a green economy are vast. Green jobs not only pay higher wages compared to conventional jobs, but they are also less likely to be exported abroad and would simultaneously move our country towards energy efficiency, sustainability and self-reliance. If we work towards green sector development, we could take a step closer to improving our current, rather dismal, state of affairs. With October’s unemployment rate higher than it has been in 25 years and the personal bankruptcy rate for the first nine months of 2009 40% higher than the 2008 rate, the time is now to make the necessary change towards an economy that would be best for everyone, including Mother Nature.

For more information, please see Applied Research Center’s Green Jobs webpage at: www.arc.org/greenjobs.

For the first time in history, I actually agree with Byron York. Almost. I think he’s completely uncharitable to neglect to mention the deterioration of Karzai’s government as a possible reason for some Democrats to now reject what they once supported in additional troops. I know that I make a critical distinction between doing nation building in a place where we are welcomed and the government has credibility, and doing it where we are propping up a corrupt and unpopular government. Karzai has moved from the former category into the latter over the last few years, and that is enough of a change to make me change my thinking on the wisdom of being in Afghanistan. Others’ mileage may vary, but I’m really, really skeptical leading into tonight’s speech.

BENEATH THE SPIN * ERIC L. WATTREE

The Role of Poor, Minorities, and Middle Class in the New World Order

The phrase “New World Order” says it all. But in our blind naivete’ and the belief that “it can’t happen here,” the vast majority of American people believe the phrase refers to the reshuffling, in terms of importance, of the various nations around the world. We fail to understand that the change is much more profound than that. The new world order not only applies to a geo-political reshuffling among nations, but the reshuffling of the internal economic structure within individual nations as well.
That means that as the world moves from many separate national economies to one global economy the class structure of the various nations of the world must be adjusted to accommodate the new state of affairs. In turn, that means that the high standard of living enjoyed by the American middle class since WWII can no longer be sustained in an economy where many of America’s competitors are paying their workers less per week, than many of us spend on lunch per day. That accounts for why American jobs are being outsourced to other countries, and Walmart, one of the largest retail corporations in the world, has based its business model on purchasing most of its merchandise from China in order to undercut the price demands of its competitors.

Walmart is a microcosm of the revised American business strategy under the new world order. One can look at Walmart’s business model, and the socioeconomic profile of its employees, and see exactly what direction American business, and our society, is headed as a whole.

Walmart’s business strategy is to hire easily replaceable and low skilled employees who are at, or very near, the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. It then takes advantage of their precarious economic condition to squeezes every dime of profit out of the company’s operation . They aggressively fight organized labor to hold down employee wages and benefits, and deny their employees anything approaching affordable health-care. That, essentially, is the American business model under the new world order.

Business is no longer a friend of the American people. Where business was once our partner in a symbiotic relationship, it is now a predator to consumers and employees alike. Our parents could pull into a gas station and a guy in a white shirt and bow tie would run out to check their oil and water, then put air in their tires as he pumped twenty-two cents a gallon gas into their tanks. I know – gas is no longer that cheap, but what happen to the service?

It was once considered unseemly for a woman to have to pump gas – I don’t think my mother even knew how to operate a gas pump. But now it’s become so routine in our culture that if you’re a passenger it’s no longer politically correct to even offer to pump the gas for a woman (“What, you think because I’m a woman I don’t have sense enough to squeeze a nozzle?”). Now my mother would not only have to pump her own gas, check her own oil, and put air in her tires, but they’d make her pay extra for the air. Think about that. They charge us for air!

The reason for that is greed. When the United States had a thriving industrial economy one class complimented the other. Labor was well paid and given the security of knowing that they had a job for life, so they had the confidence to purchased goods that the corporations produced. That allowed the companies that sold the goods to prosper, to the benefit of the investor class.

But now, in a global market, in order to remain competitive with countries that pay their workers just above slave wages, corporations have to squeeze every penny, and every concession out of the labor class that they can get. And since the heads of these corporations must make huge profits to justify their unconscionably oversized bonuses, they prey on their workers by undercutting their benefits and outsource the very jobs that the economy is dependent upon to sustain the corporation, and the nation. But since these corporate heads live from bonus to bonus and only think about themselves, they never stop to consider the negative impact of their irresponsible behavior.

So when Wall Street or the Fed announces that the economy is thriving, they’re not talking about the American economy as a whole – they’re only talking about the monetary return of the investor class. A thriving economy means they’re successfully squeezing the American worker to the limit, and gouging the consumer of every penny that he can afford to part with – and a few that he can’t. It is that kind of greed and irresponsibility that led to last year’s economic disaster, and nothing has changed.

In the global economy of the new world order, corporations no longer need the American worker to sustain their profits. Now that they can outsource their labor, and purchase and sell their goods overseas, the American worker is no longer a partner in the corporation’s viability. the worker has now been relegated to the status of field hand. The only time they need us is when they want to tap the treasury for our tax dollars to pay off their gambling debts.

And this is the very same group that the Republicans and Liebercrats are trying to protect. This is also the group that the wingnuts are fighting so hard to keep between them and their doctors. There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that the Republicans are protecting the very same insurance industry that victimized us in Wall Street bailout. They took our money, now they’re using it to block affordable healthcare for the American people.

They were paid billions of dollars by large corporations to cover corporate gambling debts. AIG accepted corporate funds, knowing that they didn’t have the resources to cover the debts if the corporations got into trouble. Then when the corporations rolled snake eyes, AIG simply turned to the American people and said, you’ve got to cover these debts, or else. We and our clients are much too big to be allowed to fail.

An article in Wikipedia points out that “The AIG Financial Products division headed by Joseph Cassano, in London, had entered into credit default swaps to insure $441 billion worth of securities originally rated AAA. Of those securities, $57.8 billion were structured debt securities backed by subprime loans.” So not only did the American taxpayer pay off this insurance company’s debt, but we paid off a debt that originated in another country.

Now your money is being taken once again, but this time, they’re taking YOUR money, to pay YOUR representative, to block an attempt by President Obama to stop them from cutting YOUR throat in a time of crisis, just like they did the corporations on Wall Street. But there’s one very big difference – you and you’re family are not too big to fail, so without the benefit of a robust healthcare reform, you’re simply gonna bite the dust – and with the corrupt and able assistance of many of your very own representatives.

I’m sure that many are going to call me crazy socialist, and continue to tear up as Boehner, Lieberman, and the various other demagogues shuffle out and look into the camera with the solemnity of the pope. But just remember, when they tell you that they’re fighting for truth, justice, and the American way, the truth is so glaring that sometimes it slips through in some of the most unlikely places. Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) said the following:

“So this may be an audacious suggestion, but I would suggest we put aside the health care debate until next year, the same way we put cap and trade and climate change and talk now about the essentials, the war and money.”

So there you have it – “war and money.” That just about sums up your place in the new world order.

—
Eric L. Wattree
wattree.blogspot.com

Religious bigotry: It’s not that I hate everyone who doesn’t look, think, and act like me – it’s just that God does.

If Americans Knew published their yearly appeal to help the Palestinians of Bethlehem survive the assault of Israeli colonialism in the West Bank, in particular, the use of a 25 foot Wall to separate Bethlehem from the surrounding colonies of Israeli settlers. Like Qalqilia, a Palestinian city of 25,000, which is totally surrounded on all sides by the Wall (manned by towers and checkpoints in and out), Bethlehem is also surrounded on all sides, as seen in the map above.

Front of this year’s card.

The Text on the Back of this card reads:

The people of Bethlehem are asking for our help.

Towering walls and militarized fences now encircle Bethlehem, turning the 4,000-year-old city into a virtual prison for its Palestinian Christian and Muslim citizens. Bethlehem has only three gates to the outside world, all tightly controlled by Israeli occupation forces.

Israel has confiscated almost all the agricultural land in the area for illegal settlements, making it impossible for many Palestinian farmers to continue tending their land. Outside the town, the fields where shepherds once watched their flocks are being filled by Israeli housing blocs and roads barred to the descendants of those shepherds.

“It is unconscionable that Bethlehem should be allowed to die slowly from strangulation,” says South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Bethlehem’s residents increasingly are fleeing Israel’s confining walls, and soon the city, home to the oldest Christian community in the world, will have little left of its Christian history but the cold stones of empty churches.

Though most Americans don’t know it, we are directly involved in Israel’s strangulation of Bethlehem. Fortune Magazine and other analysts consistently rank the Israel lobby as one of the most effective special interests in Washington; Americans give Israel about $7 million per day. In its just over 60 years of existence, Israel has received more US tax money than any other nation.

As we seek peace and joy for the world, it is time to reconsider an expenditure that perpetuates injustice, tragic violence, and conflict. Please help.

Anyone interested in purchasing these inexpensive cards, click HERE.

Sometimes you can win politically in the long-run by losing elections in the short-run. Right? Isn’t that the theory that Chris Bowers is operating under? Whatever your problems with Barack Obama, would you really prefer a president John Kerry (with adulterous vice-president John Edwards in tow)? And, without Bush’s disastrous second term, we wouldn’t have anywhere near these congressional majorities. If you can set aside the immeasurable damage that Bush created in the 2005-2009 time period, we clearly are better off that Bush defeated Kerry. What were we thinking when we campaigned against Bush/Cheney in 2004?

Of course, you can’t play at politics this way. You have to play to win. Losing elections is not a sane way to advance a political agenda, even if it might occasionally work out for the best. If the world could be spared a second Bush term, it was our responsibility to do everything in our power to see that that happened. Ask New Orleans. Ask the unemployed. Remember Samuel Alito and John Roberts.

As for the elections that we won in 2006 and 2008, we can only imagine how paralyzed Washington would be if Congress was still controlled by the Republican Party. Even a few less members of each house would render Obama’s presidency impotent. I understand the sentiment, but we really don’t have the luxury of holding out for a progressive Shangri-La.

P.S. It appears that Nate Silver agrees with me.

Larry Summers, the Director of the National Economic Council is one of President Obama’s chief economic advisers. So why, in a recession when more people are unemployed than at any time since the Depression era, is he going around making statements like this one which only adds fuel to the fire that Democrats, now that they have the power, don’t give a damn about ordinary Americans who have lost their jobs or fear that their heads are next on the chopping block at their place of work?

“I think recessions like the one we’re suffering now have very substantial costs,” said Lawrence Summers, director of Obama’s National Economic Council.

“Addressing 10.2 percent unemployment is a matter of very great urgency. It is not something that is going to be fixed in a week, or a month, or a year,” Summers said in after-dinner remarks for a conference on innovation and the economy sponsored by Intel Corp and the Aspen Institute.

Tell us more good news, Larry, why don’t you? This sounds a lot like George Bush’s infamous statement that governing was “hard work,” only couched in slightly more sophisticated language than the “former alcoholic I’d most like to have a beer with” would have employed.

Look, I know you were at the Aspen Institute talking to wealthy senior executives of business and the financial industry, and the same intellectual giants of that dismal science known as Economics who got us into this mess (even while lining their own pockets), but don’t you have a clue how this is going to sound to your average American citizen who has lost his or her job, or fears they may in the near future?

I’m sorry Larry, but telling people that unemployment is a tough thing to fix isn’t exactly what America needs to hear right now, and it sure isn’t exactly the message the White House should be putting out. It should be saying that it will do everything and anything to increase the creation of new jobs. Furthermore, it shoukld be backing up thiose pledges with detailed policy proposals to put Americans back to work. Whining about how hard it is to create jobs is the absolute worst thing any Director of The President’s Economic Council should be saying.

Not only does it discourage progressive Democrats in Congress who are fighting to create jobs legislation, but it seriously harms the Democrats’ ability to turn out voters next Fall in the 2010 elections when Republican opponents can point to Summers’ (and Tim Geithner’s) ineffectual leadership and seemingly callous attitude to the plight of millions of Americans with no jobs and increasingly no homes or health care, either.

It won’t matter that the Republican solutions they offer will be the same old warmed over refried beans of “smaller government,” “tax cuts” and “deregulation” that created this disaster. If people perceive that Democrats don’t have a clearly defined plan to address unemployment they’ll either stay home or vote back in the same idiots of the GOP who created the Bush era’s “slash and burn” style of economic development.

Why was Larry Summers hired in the first place to head the President’s National Economic Council? This was a man whose investment decisions at Harvard lost the school’s endowment 1.8 BILLION DOLLARS. To give that number some perspective here’s the budget deficit for the entire state of New York in 2009: $3.2 Billion.

All I can say is thank god Larry Summers wasn’t in charge of New York State’s finances because if he could lose 1.8 Billion at Harvard, imagine what he could do managing a state budget. Oh wait — now he’s one of the chief people responsible for the Federal Government’s economic policies. Mea culpa!

Yet, for some inexplicable reason this inept economist and college administrator is our top economic adviser. So what is the grand plan to create new jobs that he and his fellow advisers to President Obama are pushing? Hold a jobs forum!

The White House has pointed out repeatedly that job creation traditionally lags an economic recovery, as firms squeeze more productivity out of existing workers before adding to their payrolls. As a result, it is eager to encourage firms to boost hiring and is hosting a jobs forum on Thursday to explore ways the process can be speeded up.

Summers said policies to foster science in schools, as well as research and development in the private sector, would be crucial to aiding long-term U.S. productivity growth.

The White House jobs forum will also focus on how to boost U.S. exports, and Summers reiterated the United States would no longer be the engine on which the rest of the world economy could fly.

In my five decades on this planet, I’ve seen lots of “economic summits” and “government forums.” You know what usually happens when they are over? Nothing changes. Nada. Zip. Trust me, this “jobs forum” is just a dog and pony show, and all it will create is a lot of crappy talking points. One thing it won’t do is create a single new job. All a jobs forum amounts to is a public relations event, not a true set of policies or legislation to actually take substantive action to create jobs.

And jobs are what this country needs right now, not more supercilious talk and useless bloviation from gasbags like Larry “I screwed up Harvard’s Endowment Fund and all I got was this cushy job as head of the National Economic Council” Summers. Too bad President Obama got conned into appointing this idiot to be his chief economic adviser. It was arguably one of the worst appointments Obama made, and until Summers is replaced and a new economic team put in place don’t expect much help from the Obama administration if you need a job. Because Larry summers comes from a long line of insiders who “got theirs” and have no clue how to help the rest of us “get ours.”

But hey, aren’t the aspens pretty in the fall, Larry?

Elements of Obama’s Afghanistan plan are now leaking out at a steady rate. I’m not going to slam the plan until I hear it from the president’s mouth, and he might be more convincing than the early reports. I do have one quibble with what I’ve read so far. It comes at the end of this:

[British Prime Minister Gordon] Brown said that the strategy calls for “transfer of lead security responsibility to the Afghans — district by district, province by province — with the first districts and provinces potentially being handed over during the next year,” depending on “the Afghans being ready.”

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said that transferring security responsibility for specific Afghan areas will be “a big part of what you’ll hear the president talk about tomorrow.”

Allied governments have pressed Karzai to remove warlords and cronies from senior government positions. Over the next nine months, Brown said, the Afghan president “will be expected to implement . . . far-reaching reforms to ensure that, from now on, all 400 provinces and districts have a governor appointed on merit, free from corruption, with clearly defined roles, skills and resources.”

It’s not as if Hamid Karzai is some sadistic sociopath like Saddam Hussein. He hasn’t appointed warlords to prominent positions because he is fond of warlordism. The decision to use warlords is necessitated by the need to otherwise, you know, make war on them. You can’t fix an endemic problem like that by issuing lectures about merit and ‘clearly defined roles.’ When I hear bullshit like that coming from the British Prime Minister, I am not instilled with great confidence. Yes, it is a worthy goal. But I don’t see it working out quite the way they hope.