The game went like this:
Lower taxes (for corporations & the wealthy)
Let Big Business regulate itself
Turn all things public
Private
Acquire, merge and consolidate
Create monopolies
Crush organized labor
Move jobs overseas
Keep wages low
Buy politicians
The fable went that the rich would invest & innovate
And the “free” market would provide
For the common good
Prosperity for all was guaranteed
Once the heavy hand of government
Was lifted from our shoulders
For the fortunate few it worked
Better than Merlin’s magic
Wealth attracted wealth
Like ants to honey
For the many it’s Dante’s Inferno
The Grapes of Wrath
A foreclosure notice & the unemployment line
The divide between haves and have-nots
Has widened
And widened
Like that of any banana republic
We are two nations living side by side
The United States of Fabulous Wealth
The United States of Shameful Poverty
No in-between
No middle ground
And it’s unstoppable now
The unaccountable money men who make the rules
And rule the world
Never explained how wage slaving masses
Could keep the consumer economy humming
Once credit cards were maxed and the ATM
In the living room
Spit out its last dollar
When the bubble burst and the men behind
The silken curtain were exposed
As Armani clad liars and thieves
Our government rushed to their rescue
Pledged our money
To save the Temple of Greed
We the many pay the cost
We the many make the sacrifice
We the many watch the common good
On which our lives depend
Vanish
Monday, July 19, 2010
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Wrong Color, Wrong Place: The Murder of Oscar Grant
What was your crime, Oscar Grant
Other than being born black
In Oakland, CA?
Face down on the cement
Handcuffed
Harmless
Shot in the back by a white transit cop
While witnesses recorded on cell phones
Born black in Oakland
Born black in America
Wrong color
Wrong place
47 years after the 16th Street Baptist Church
Bombing in Birmingham
18 years after Rodney King
Look at how far we have not come
Another white cop walks away
After murdering a black man
Though not scot free
Officer Merserle may serve less time
For killing Oscar Grant
Than Michael Vick served for killing a dog
That’s perversity not justice
Oscar Grant was killed twice
Once on that station platform in Oakland
And a second time in an LA
Courtroom
Other than being born black
In Oakland, CA?
Face down on the cement
Handcuffed
Harmless
Shot in the back by a white transit cop
While witnesses recorded on cell phones
Born black in Oakland
Born black in America
Wrong color
Wrong place
47 years after the 16th Street Baptist Church
Bombing in Birmingham
18 years after Rodney King
Look at how far we have not come
Another white cop walks away
After murdering a black man
Though not scot free
Officer Merserle may serve less time
For killing Oscar Grant
Than Michael Vick served for killing a dog
That’s perversity not justice
Oscar Grant was killed twice
Once on that station platform in Oakland
And a second time in an LA
Courtroom
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
At the Expense of the Many
My family and I watch the fireworks arc over Stearn’s Wharf on the 4th of July. The beach and waterfront are jammed with people and the air is heavy with the smell of a hundred BBQ grills. Traditional American rah-rah music plays from a loudspeaker on West Beach. Most of the people sitting on the sand around us are speaking Spanish. Cameras flash as the sky overhead bursts into bright green, red and gold; I see faces illuminated by the light from cell phones.
Happy birthday, America.
On this holiday night I want to think about what is right with our country, but so many things are out of whack that I can’t focus on the positive – two wars dragging on, the long term implications of the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the tanked economy, the largest prison population in the world, and the perils of climate change. This is what I’m thinking about as the fireworks rise up and explode.
How do citizens change a system dominated by two political parties who tap dance to the same corporate drummer? How do we restore a healthy balance of power between capital and labor, government and big business, domestic needs and geopolitical realities? How can we fight against the enormous power wielded by corporate lawyers and lobbyists?
Under the guise of taming the Federal deficit, President Obama’s blue-ribbon deficit commission is mounting a rationale to reduce Social Security benefits, raise the retirement age (again) or both. The campaign is built on fabrications since Social Security is actually a program that pays its own way and does not contribute to the deficit, but don’t bother telling that to the commission members who have concluded (in advance) that reducing Social Security will send the right message to the financial markets. In other words, it’s once again more important to place the perceived needs of the financial sector over those of millions of average citizens.
Are we going to stand for this?
There are far better ways to reduce the Federal deficit than eviscerating Social Security, which, by the way, has been the Holy Grail of GOP conservatives for decades. How about cutting the bloated defense budget, reducing the number of U.S. bases that straddle the globe? How about eliminating subsidies for Big Oil?
Our society is structured for the enrichment of the few at the expense of the many. For the most part, the people we elect to do our business make a mockery of representative democracy. There are, to be sure, some bright, committed people in Congress, but they are overshadowed and out numbered by mediocre partisans. It took many years to bring this society into being, and it figures to take many years to unravel it in favor of something more just and sustainable.
If you want to know what a nation values, you need only watch where it spends its resources. As the fireworks soar through the summer sky, I ask myself how this country can always find money for war but rarely for peace; I ask myself why taxpayer subsidies for profitable corporations arouse little or no ire, while help for the needy or a dignified retirement for senior citizens drives the political right into a self-righteous frenzy.
The finale has begun. Boom, boom, boom, red, green, gold, star bursts and molten streamers, and the voice of Lee Greenwood singing Proud to be an American echoing on the loudspeaker. I don’t feel that pride. Instead I feel a sense of loss, of wasted opportunities, and I wonder when the people will say, “Enough.”
Happy birthday, America.
On this holiday night I want to think about what is right with our country, but so many things are out of whack that I can’t focus on the positive – two wars dragging on, the long term implications of the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the tanked economy, the largest prison population in the world, and the perils of climate change. This is what I’m thinking about as the fireworks rise up and explode.
How do citizens change a system dominated by two political parties who tap dance to the same corporate drummer? How do we restore a healthy balance of power between capital and labor, government and big business, domestic needs and geopolitical realities? How can we fight against the enormous power wielded by corporate lawyers and lobbyists?
Under the guise of taming the Federal deficit, President Obama’s blue-ribbon deficit commission is mounting a rationale to reduce Social Security benefits, raise the retirement age (again) or both. The campaign is built on fabrications since Social Security is actually a program that pays its own way and does not contribute to the deficit, but don’t bother telling that to the commission members who have concluded (in advance) that reducing Social Security will send the right message to the financial markets. In other words, it’s once again more important to place the perceived needs of the financial sector over those of millions of average citizens.
Are we going to stand for this?
There are far better ways to reduce the Federal deficit than eviscerating Social Security, which, by the way, has been the Holy Grail of GOP conservatives for decades. How about cutting the bloated defense budget, reducing the number of U.S. bases that straddle the globe? How about eliminating subsidies for Big Oil?
Our society is structured for the enrichment of the few at the expense of the many. For the most part, the people we elect to do our business make a mockery of representative democracy. There are, to be sure, some bright, committed people in Congress, but they are overshadowed and out numbered by mediocre partisans. It took many years to bring this society into being, and it figures to take many years to unravel it in favor of something more just and sustainable.
If you want to know what a nation values, you need only watch where it spends its resources. As the fireworks soar through the summer sky, I ask myself how this country can always find money for war but rarely for peace; I ask myself why taxpayer subsidies for profitable corporations arouse little or no ire, while help for the needy or a dignified retirement for senior citizens drives the political right into a self-righteous frenzy.
The finale has begun. Boom, boom, boom, red, green, gold, star bursts and molten streamers, and the voice of Lee Greenwood singing Proud to be an American echoing on the loudspeaker. I don’t feel that pride. Instead I feel a sense of loss, of wasted opportunities, and I wonder when the people will say, “Enough.”
Saturday, June 26, 2010
The Malaise
(I began writing this piece before the flap over Stanley McChrystal hit the media.)
Something is terribly wrong with the American occupation of Afghanistan.
It’s not working. The Afghans are unwilling partners in the game we are playing with their country.
The world’s lone superpower appears lost and confused as it blindly chases shadows across one of the most backward countries on the planet.
Longest “war” in U.S. history.
Let that fact sink in.
Longer than the Civil War. Longer than WWII. Longer than Vietnam.
President Obama claims the U.S. will withdraw some of its combat forces in mid-2011, but in reality the U.S. has no intention of fully withdrawing from Afghanistan – not after pouring billions of dollars and at least a thousand American lives into the country. Bases and outposts are being built for a long stay by U.S. forces and private contractors, and it’s time – years past time – for American voters and taxpayers to ask why.
Why are we in Afghanistan almost nine years later? Who are we fighting? What is our primary strategic objective, and is that objective realistic? Are we in Afghanistan so that a long sought after oil pipeline can be built and then secured through the western part of the country? Are we simply after Afghanistan’s plentiful mineral reserves?
But perhaps the most important question is the one least asked by the American news media and American politicians: how many Afghans have been killed or wounded since we invaded in 2001? What’s the body count?
And let’s go further and ask another basic question: what is the will of the Afghan people? Do they want American and NATO soldiers in their country?
Time stands against us in Afghanistan, as does history. The language spoken today by the American military and political establishment is eerily familiar to that spoken during the Vietnam War. Our military firepower is unmatched, but the conflict in Afghanistan, like Vietnam, can’t be won by firepower alone.
Stanley “Poor Judgment” McChrystal is gone and David “The Miracle Worker” Petraeus is taking command, but something remains terribly wrong in Afghanistan, not to mention in Washington D.C., and Albany, NY and Sacramento, CA and Detroit, MI and Phoenix, AZ.
Call it the superpower malaise. The case might be terminal.
Iraq. Afghanistan. The BP oil hemorrhage. An economy that won’t recover for any except the wealthy. Stubbornly high unemployment. State budgets in disarray. People suffering. The national political system paralyzed, polarized, bought and paid for with campaign bribes.
I have the sense that the world’s lone superpower is like the proverbial Potemkin village – a façade, an elaborate charade – all polished surfaces perched on a rickety foundation very near total collapse. The confidence and élan we once carried as our American birthright has been replaced with apprehension and fear – fear of Muslims and Mexicans, fear of decline, fear of change, fear of the future, fear of taxes, fear of death, fear of life, fear of the dark, and, most of all, fear of the truth about our situation.
In the years following 9/11, Hunter S. Thompson referred to the U.S. as the Kingdom of Fear, but the sort of fear I’m talking about here penetrates even deeper.
We are now a nation living on borrowed time and paying the bills with borrowed money. Our politicians and their corporate masters hum the same hackneyed tunes while the shining city on the hill burns.
Something is terribly wrong with the American occupation of Afghanistan.
It’s not working. The Afghans are unwilling partners in the game we are playing with their country.
The world’s lone superpower appears lost and confused as it blindly chases shadows across one of the most backward countries on the planet.
Longest “war” in U.S. history.
Let that fact sink in.
Longer than the Civil War. Longer than WWII. Longer than Vietnam.
President Obama claims the U.S. will withdraw some of its combat forces in mid-2011, but in reality the U.S. has no intention of fully withdrawing from Afghanistan – not after pouring billions of dollars and at least a thousand American lives into the country. Bases and outposts are being built for a long stay by U.S. forces and private contractors, and it’s time – years past time – for American voters and taxpayers to ask why.
Why are we in Afghanistan almost nine years later? Who are we fighting? What is our primary strategic objective, and is that objective realistic? Are we in Afghanistan so that a long sought after oil pipeline can be built and then secured through the western part of the country? Are we simply after Afghanistan’s plentiful mineral reserves?
But perhaps the most important question is the one least asked by the American news media and American politicians: how many Afghans have been killed or wounded since we invaded in 2001? What’s the body count?
And let’s go further and ask another basic question: what is the will of the Afghan people? Do they want American and NATO soldiers in their country?
Time stands against us in Afghanistan, as does history. The language spoken today by the American military and political establishment is eerily familiar to that spoken during the Vietnam War. Our military firepower is unmatched, but the conflict in Afghanistan, like Vietnam, can’t be won by firepower alone.
Stanley “Poor Judgment” McChrystal is gone and David “The Miracle Worker” Petraeus is taking command, but something remains terribly wrong in Afghanistan, not to mention in Washington D.C., and Albany, NY and Sacramento, CA and Detroit, MI and Phoenix, AZ.
Call it the superpower malaise. The case might be terminal.
Iraq. Afghanistan. The BP oil hemorrhage. An economy that won’t recover for any except the wealthy. Stubbornly high unemployment. State budgets in disarray. People suffering. The national political system paralyzed, polarized, bought and paid for with campaign bribes.
I have the sense that the world’s lone superpower is like the proverbial Potemkin village – a façade, an elaborate charade – all polished surfaces perched on a rickety foundation very near total collapse. The confidence and élan we once carried as our American birthright has been replaced with apprehension and fear – fear of Muslims and Mexicans, fear of decline, fear of change, fear of the future, fear of taxes, fear of death, fear of life, fear of the dark, and, most of all, fear of the truth about our situation.
In the years following 9/11, Hunter S. Thompson referred to the U.S. as the Kingdom of Fear, but the sort of fear I’m talking about here penetrates even deeper.
We are now a nation living on borrowed time and paying the bills with borrowed money. Our politicians and their corporate masters hum the same hackneyed tunes while the shining city on the hill burns.
Monday, June 14, 2010
The Lost Highway
Strong-Arm – a & v, Physically powerful; (of a criminal) using violence; a thug; a bouncer. Oxford American Dictionary
The reporter for ABC’s Good Morning America program asserted that the Obama Administration has strong-armed BP into speeding up the claims process for those affected by the ongoing oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.
Interesting choice of words.
When it comes to oil, it’s generally not the government that engages in strong-arming – it’s the oil companies, their lobbyists and legal firms – that shake down the government and taxpayers for direct subsidies, tax breaks, sweetheart deals to drill and extract on “public” land, royalty relief, and on and on and on.
But these are the days of the Tea Party movement – if one can call it that – and the corporate media is influenced by the stirring, though nonsensical, sayings of Sarah Palin, and images of angry white folk who want to take our country back – and the language of the movement advances the notion that the government is evil, profligate, intrusive and hell bent on strangling the free enterprise system. In that context, of course the Obama Administration is strong-arming poor BP and its hapless CEO, Tony Hayward, who simply and sincerely (at least he appears sincere on those TV spots) wants to make things right for all the people who live and work along the Gulf.
Well, sure, except for one minor problem: oil company CEO’s like Tony Hayward are paid huge money to do one thing -- find oil and extract it. End of story. Hayward and members of his tribe are not paid to protect the environment or even give a rat’s ass about it; when something goes wrong, CEO’s are expected to minimize the damage in any manner possible, shift the blame to others and fend off calls for increased regulatory oversight. The eventual legal outcome of the Exxon Valdez spill is a classic case in containing, deferring and reducing the financial exposure produced by a major oil spill.
BP has an abysmal safety record and evidence has recently surfaced that the company ignores safety concerns in order to lower costs and increase profits. That’s hardly a surprise. When profit is all, safety will always be a secondary concern.
The Governor of Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty, is on record as saying the Obama Administration should have had contingency plans in place for a major oil spill. Perhaps. I’m no fan of Obama when it comes to energy policy – he’s far too timid, prone to siding with Big Oil by continuing his predecessor’s industry-friendly protocols, and fond of spouting absurdities about “clean coal” and nuclear power – but I wonder if Pawlenty was in hibernation during the Bush-Cheney regime. In case there is any doubt here, two terms of Bush-Cheney were a boon to Big Oil -- an absolute run of the table, keys-to-the-kingdom, party-all-the-time, raid-the-cookie-jar, oil industry love orgy.
How was the Obama Administration supposed to unravel a decade of incestuous relationships between oil company lobbyists and regulators – not to mention all the Congress critters of both parties who are addicted to Big Oil campaign contributions -- in less than half a term? How many Republicans might have supported legislation calling for improved safety systems on deep-water oil drilling rigs or increased regulatory oversight of the drilling permit process?
Drill, baby, drill.
This isn’t to acquit the Obama Administration of blame; there’s more than enough to go around. Big Oil is guilty, our government is guilty, our campaign finance system is guilty, and so are we, the American people, for our stubborn insistence that we have the right to burn all the gasoline we can afford to buy. We love our cars, our suburbs, and the freedom offered by the open road, even as that false freedom imprisons us.
The reporter for ABC’s Good Morning America program asserted that the Obama Administration has strong-armed BP into speeding up the claims process for those affected by the ongoing oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.
Interesting choice of words.
When it comes to oil, it’s generally not the government that engages in strong-arming – it’s the oil companies, their lobbyists and legal firms – that shake down the government and taxpayers for direct subsidies, tax breaks, sweetheart deals to drill and extract on “public” land, royalty relief, and on and on and on.
But these are the days of the Tea Party movement – if one can call it that – and the corporate media is influenced by the stirring, though nonsensical, sayings of Sarah Palin, and images of angry white folk who want to take our country back – and the language of the movement advances the notion that the government is evil, profligate, intrusive and hell bent on strangling the free enterprise system. In that context, of course the Obama Administration is strong-arming poor BP and its hapless CEO, Tony Hayward, who simply and sincerely (at least he appears sincere on those TV spots) wants to make things right for all the people who live and work along the Gulf.
Well, sure, except for one minor problem: oil company CEO’s like Tony Hayward are paid huge money to do one thing -- find oil and extract it. End of story. Hayward and members of his tribe are not paid to protect the environment or even give a rat’s ass about it; when something goes wrong, CEO’s are expected to minimize the damage in any manner possible, shift the blame to others and fend off calls for increased regulatory oversight. The eventual legal outcome of the Exxon Valdez spill is a classic case in containing, deferring and reducing the financial exposure produced by a major oil spill.
BP has an abysmal safety record and evidence has recently surfaced that the company ignores safety concerns in order to lower costs and increase profits. That’s hardly a surprise. When profit is all, safety will always be a secondary concern.
The Governor of Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty, is on record as saying the Obama Administration should have had contingency plans in place for a major oil spill. Perhaps. I’m no fan of Obama when it comes to energy policy – he’s far too timid, prone to siding with Big Oil by continuing his predecessor’s industry-friendly protocols, and fond of spouting absurdities about “clean coal” and nuclear power – but I wonder if Pawlenty was in hibernation during the Bush-Cheney regime. In case there is any doubt here, two terms of Bush-Cheney were a boon to Big Oil -- an absolute run of the table, keys-to-the-kingdom, party-all-the-time, raid-the-cookie-jar, oil industry love orgy.
How was the Obama Administration supposed to unravel a decade of incestuous relationships between oil company lobbyists and regulators – not to mention all the Congress critters of both parties who are addicted to Big Oil campaign contributions -- in less than half a term? How many Republicans might have supported legislation calling for improved safety systems on deep-water oil drilling rigs or increased regulatory oversight of the drilling permit process?
Drill, baby, drill.
This isn’t to acquit the Obama Administration of blame; there’s more than enough to go around. Big Oil is guilty, our government is guilty, our campaign finance system is guilty, and so are we, the American people, for our stubborn insistence that we have the right to burn all the gasoline we can afford to buy. We love our cars, our suburbs, and the freedom offered by the open road, even as that false freedom imprisons us.
Tuesday, June 08, 2010
Ye Shall Know Them by Their Sacrifice
George W. Bush led and misled the nation into two wars and charged the costs – enormous costs – on the national Visa card. Barack Obama took office and continued the practice, racking up more millions in debt for future generations to deal with. The wars continue. After nearly seven years, Iraq has settled into a mire of internecine and sectarian conflict that could flare up at any time, but at least the death rate for American soldiers has declined.
We should celebrate that fact, right?
We don’t tally the Iraqi dead or dislocated. It’s their country but they don’t matter enough to count how many have died or fled since Dick and Junior unleashed the hounds of war.
Afghanistan is another story. We stormed in full of retributive rage, kicked Taliban ass, relaxed and congratulated ourselves while the Taliban regrouped; when it became clear the Taliban wasn’t going to fold, we found ourselves in a fight in a very inhospitable land. Obama has doubled down, sending in more troops, investing more money, changing tactics…
But the costs of the war are still out of sight and mind, off the radar of most Americans because no sacrifice is required of us; we are not asked to change our lifestyles to support the war effort, we are only asked to salute the “brave men and women who stand in harm’s way” on Memorial Day and the 9/11 Anniversary. No draft to frighten the wits out of suburban kids and make them think – really think – about the realities of war, about what constitutes a real threat to the nation’s security, and about what justifies sending American men and women to distant lands to fight and die.
No general sacrifice. No war tax to pay the costs. Business as usual with the wars as minor inconvenience, a remote event to check in on every now and then. No images of dead Americans on the tube every night. No protests on college campuses. No riots. No sit-ins or teach-ins.
Same tale in the energy sphere. As oil bleeds from the Gulf of Mexico I remember Jimmy Carter in his sweater, in the late 70’s, solemnly telling Americans that we had to change our profligate ways and learn to conserve natural resources. Thermostat down, sweater on; smaller, more fuel efficient cars; mass transit systems; regulations on polluting industries. To show how serious he was about energy conservation, Carter had solar panels installed on the White House roof. Carter was right but perhaps too far ahead of his time, too honest with an electorate rattled by the Arab oil embargo and a dragging economy to accept that even America, the chosen nation, had to face limits.
When Reagan had the solar panels removed politicians everywhere took note of the political lesson: don’t dare ask Americans to sacrifice – those JFK ask-what-you-can-do-for-your-country days are over. Promise the people small government and low taxes, cheap gasoline, easy credit, and, above all, preach non-stop the inherent beauty of the free market. Happy days are here again and will stay forever as long as Big Business is allowed to operate unfettered by Big Government.
Reagan had the lines and the delivery, the actor’s ability to make us believe in an impossible dream. One of the worst things we did was to allow the oil companies to consolidate and become bigger and more powerful than ever, with economic and political clout unseen since the days of the Standard Oil trust. Unfortunately, we do not have a Teddy Roosevelt in our midst to restore order.
We want cheap, plentiful gasoline and a clean environment, but the two are incompatible. Oil extraction is messy, dangerous and damaging to the environment no matter how much commercial time ExxonMobil or BP or Chevron buy to convince us otherwise. We can burn oil or have a semi-livable planet, but not both.
No sacrifice at the national level, no sacrifice on the local either. We demand good schools, smooth roads, fire and police protection, clean air and water, parks and open spaces, but we don’t want to pay the price for these things. We fall victim to talking points and mantras spoken by charlatans and posers: taxes are evil, government can do nothing right, privatize everything, leave the wealthy alone and the poor to fend for themselves.
The point of no return went by in a blur.
We are the United States of No Sacrifice.
We should celebrate that fact, right?
We don’t tally the Iraqi dead or dislocated. It’s their country but they don’t matter enough to count how many have died or fled since Dick and Junior unleashed the hounds of war.
Afghanistan is another story. We stormed in full of retributive rage, kicked Taliban ass, relaxed and congratulated ourselves while the Taliban regrouped; when it became clear the Taliban wasn’t going to fold, we found ourselves in a fight in a very inhospitable land. Obama has doubled down, sending in more troops, investing more money, changing tactics…
But the costs of the war are still out of sight and mind, off the radar of most Americans because no sacrifice is required of us; we are not asked to change our lifestyles to support the war effort, we are only asked to salute the “brave men and women who stand in harm’s way” on Memorial Day and the 9/11 Anniversary. No draft to frighten the wits out of suburban kids and make them think – really think – about the realities of war, about what constitutes a real threat to the nation’s security, and about what justifies sending American men and women to distant lands to fight and die.
No general sacrifice. No war tax to pay the costs. Business as usual with the wars as minor inconvenience, a remote event to check in on every now and then. No images of dead Americans on the tube every night. No protests on college campuses. No riots. No sit-ins or teach-ins.
Same tale in the energy sphere. As oil bleeds from the Gulf of Mexico I remember Jimmy Carter in his sweater, in the late 70’s, solemnly telling Americans that we had to change our profligate ways and learn to conserve natural resources. Thermostat down, sweater on; smaller, more fuel efficient cars; mass transit systems; regulations on polluting industries. To show how serious he was about energy conservation, Carter had solar panels installed on the White House roof. Carter was right but perhaps too far ahead of his time, too honest with an electorate rattled by the Arab oil embargo and a dragging economy to accept that even America, the chosen nation, had to face limits.
When Reagan had the solar panels removed politicians everywhere took note of the political lesson: don’t dare ask Americans to sacrifice – those JFK ask-what-you-can-do-for-your-country days are over. Promise the people small government and low taxes, cheap gasoline, easy credit, and, above all, preach non-stop the inherent beauty of the free market. Happy days are here again and will stay forever as long as Big Business is allowed to operate unfettered by Big Government.
Reagan had the lines and the delivery, the actor’s ability to make us believe in an impossible dream. One of the worst things we did was to allow the oil companies to consolidate and become bigger and more powerful than ever, with economic and political clout unseen since the days of the Standard Oil trust. Unfortunately, we do not have a Teddy Roosevelt in our midst to restore order.
We want cheap, plentiful gasoline and a clean environment, but the two are incompatible. Oil extraction is messy, dangerous and damaging to the environment no matter how much commercial time ExxonMobil or BP or Chevron buy to convince us otherwise. We can burn oil or have a semi-livable planet, but not both.
No sacrifice at the national level, no sacrifice on the local either. We demand good schools, smooth roads, fire and police protection, clean air and water, parks and open spaces, but we don’t want to pay the price for these things. We fall victim to talking points and mantras spoken by charlatans and posers: taxes are evil, government can do nothing right, privatize everything, leave the wealthy alone and the poor to fend for themselves.
The point of no return went by in a blur.
We are the United States of No Sacrifice.
Wednesday, June 02, 2010
Unholy Blockade
Leave it to the Israeli government to open a locked door with an American made sledgehammer rather than a key. I wonder if Israel’s rulers have finally done something so heinous that the world will not allow it to fade away.
While most of the world condemns Israel, the US is doing its usual contortions, mumbling when it should speak loudly and clearly, calling for an “investigation” that might take months or years to conclude, and come to nothing.
Israel is spinning the story of its assault on a humanitarian aid flotilla bound for besieged Gaza, downplaying the death of at least ten and perhaps more people, and acting as if Israel was only retaliating against a direct attack by some of the world’s most notorious and heavily armed terrorists.
Among those in the flotilla were a member of the Israeli parliament, an ex-US Ambassador and a clergyman. Tough bunch, hardened in battle. Sure.
For Israel it’s the same tired and outrageous story of disproportionate response. Eighteen months ago Israel launched a blistering three-weeks-long attack on the Gaza Strip, purportedly in response for Hamas rocket attacks, killing more than 1,000 Palestinians and wreaking total havoc on a defenseless population. Liken it to shooting fish in a barrel. Cluster bombs, white phosphorous, Hellfire missiles, artillery – some of the deadliest hardware available, a good deal of it supplied by the US government – were employed to punish Gazans for supporting Hamas.
Never mind that Hamas won election in Gaza in 2006, fair and square. The Bush-Cheney junta found the outcome unacceptable and refused to recognize the new and legitimate government -- because, you see -- the US only supports democracy when it produces a result the US approves of. Hamas was not supposed to win the election, and even today the CIA makes no mention of the election, instead insisting that Hamas seized power by force.
But back to the flotilla and Israel’s latest outrage: 700 passengers of conscience, young and old, men and women, representing forty nations, determined to deliver desperately needed aid to Gaza, knowingly sailing into the teeth of the Israeli blockade, and probably not surprised when gunboats and helicopters appeared, hell bent on stopping the flotilla right there in international waters. Not that Israel gives a damn about international law: no nation on earth flouts international law more frequently than Israel, except perhaps North Korea.
Not that I’m linking Israel to a charter member of the Axis of Evil. No, I support Israel’s right to defend itself as much as I condemn Israel for its brutal, inhuman treatment of the Palestinians. The problem seems to be that Israel can no longer discern a mild threat from a grave one. As Noam Chomsky recently wrote -- after being denied entry into the West Bank city of Ramallah by the Israeli government -- “It (Israel) has become far more paranoid, defensive, irrational and ultranationalist.”
Yes, starving a population of 1.5 million people is irrational, as is attacking a flotilla of vessels carrying aid to those people. Definitely irrational, possibly illegal, certainly inhuman, but Israel acts as defiant as ever, secure under the protection of the American umbrella and armed to the teeth with American military hardware.
Imagine if the tables were turned and ten Israeli civilians were murdered while on a humanitarian mission; I doubt the United States would sit idly by, parsing words.
While most of the world condemns Israel, the US is doing its usual contortions, mumbling when it should speak loudly and clearly, calling for an “investigation” that might take months or years to conclude, and come to nothing.
Israel is spinning the story of its assault on a humanitarian aid flotilla bound for besieged Gaza, downplaying the death of at least ten and perhaps more people, and acting as if Israel was only retaliating against a direct attack by some of the world’s most notorious and heavily armed terrorists.
Among those in the flotilla were a member of the Israeli parliament, an ex-US Ambassador and a clergyman. Tough bunch, hardened in battle. Sure.
For Israel it’s the same tired and outrageous story of disproportionate response. Eighteen months ago Israel launched a blistering three-weeks-long attack on the Gaza Strip, purportedly in response for Hamas rocket attacks, killing more than 1,000 Palestinians and wreaking total havoc on a defenseless population. Liken it to shooting fish in a barrel. Cluster bombs, white phosphorous, Hellfire missiles, artillery – some of the deadliest hardware available, a good deal of it supplied by the US government – were employed to punish Gazans for supporting Hamas.
Never mind that Hamas won election in Gaza in 2006, fair and square. The Bush-Cheney junta found the outcome unacceptable and refused to recognize the new and legitimate government -- because, you see -- the US only supports democracy when it produces a result the US approves of. Hamas was not supposed to win the election, and even today the CIA makes no mention of the election, instead insisting that Hamas seized power by force.
But back to the flotilla and Israel’s latest outrage: 700 passengers of conscience, young and old, men and women, representing forty nations, determined to deliver desperately needed aid to Gaza, knowingly sailing into the teeth of the Israeli blockade, and probably not surprised when gunboats and helicopters appeared, hell bent on stopping the flotilla right there in international waters. Not that Israel gives a damn about international law: no nation on earth flouts international law more frequently than Israel, except perhaps North Korea.
Not that I’m linking Israel to a charter member of the Axis of Evil. No, I support Israel’s right to defend itself as much as I condemn Israel for its brutal, inhuman treatment of the Palestinians. The problem seems to be that Israel can no longer discern a mild threat from a grave one. As Noam Chomsky recently wrote -- after being denied entry into the West Bank city of Ramallah by the Israeli government -- “It (Israel) has become far more paranoid, defensive, irrational and ultranationalist.”
Yes, starving a population of 1.5 million people is irrational, as is attacking a flotilla of vessels carrying aid to those people. Definitely irrational, possibly illegal, certainly inhuman, but Israel acts as defiant as ever, secure under the protection of the American umbrella and armed to the teeth with American military hardware.
Imagine if the tables were turned and ten Israeli civilians were murdered while on a humanitarian mission; I doubt the United States would sit idly by, parsing words.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Endless War Memorials
Nine years fighting in Afghanistan, seven years of occupation in Iraq, a trillion dollars spent, thousands killed, wounded and maimed, and the lives of hundreds of thousands forever changed.
Happy Memorial Day. Slap another burger on the grill, crack another beer, pass the potato chips.
Counting private military contractors paid for by the American taxpayers, and UN personnel, there are upwards of 150,000 foreigners in Afghanistan. In the middle of this onslaught, Stanley McChrystal, the American commander, claims that the safety of Afghan civilians is his top priority.
Memo to Stanley: Civilians are the first casualties of armed conflict. The more of them you kill, the more their survivors will want to kill you.
Iraq is now a “democracy,” but so fractured that a government cannot be assembled. The weakness of the government leads to anger or opportunism among the populace, which leads to shootings and car bombings and suicide attacks, which leads to calls for increased security. U.S. “combat” forces are due to depart Iraq this summer (wink, wink), but don’t fret, the Americans aren’t going anywhere – not with billions of gallons of proven oil reserves under their semi-permanent and permanent military facilities, not to mention the largest embassy complex on the planet.
As author Kevin Phillips said, the U.S. military is now an “oil protection force.” Spread your world map out and notice where U.S. military facilities or rapid deployment resources are positioned, and the correlation between oil supplies and America’s “strategic interests” become sickeningly clear. “Strategic interests” is a euphemism the U.S. employs to give itself the right to use force wherever it deems appropriate.
In other words, where there is oil there are U.S. forces. This is the true fight for freedom and the American way of life.
Our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are undeclared. Under the Constitution, only Congress has the authority to declare war. Dick Cheney still laughs about how easy it was to get around that minor stipulation.
Nine years in Afghanistan, seven years in Iraq. Do you feel safer? Has the sacrifice in blood and coin been worth it?
Meanwhile, the source of much of the conflict between the Arab world and the west is ignored: Israel and the Palestinians. Today, in fact, Israeli defense forces attacked a flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza, killing between ten and nineteen people depending on what news sources you believe. Naturally, the Israelis claim they were fired upon by the civilians in the flotilla, or battled at close quarters by humanitarian activists armed with knives and clubs. Right. We’re expected to believe that a group of humanitarian activists would choose to take on the Israeli army.
World leaders – with the exception of the U.S., of course -- have been quick to condemn Israel’s latest actions as disproportionate. This is the same condemnation that was leveled when Israel launched a brutal attack against Gaza in 2009. More than 1,000 Palestinians were killed and much of Gaza’s infrastructure destroyed during that campaign – the point of which was to demonstrate to the people of Gaza the futility of siding with Hamas.
Israel has since blockaded Gaza, exacerbating a humanitarian crisis that the world would not tolerate were it happening anyplace else, but when it comes to Israel and the Palestinians, all bets are off, and the political and diplomatic justifications for saying and doing nothing become as contorted as the lengths taken to ignore all moral questions.
Happy Memorial Day. Slap another burger on the grill, crack another beer, pass the potato chips.
Counting private military contractors paid for by the American taxpayers, and UN personnel, there are upwards of 150,000 foreigners in Afghanistan. In the middle of this onslaught, Stanley McChrystal, the American commander, claims that the safety of Afghan civilians is his top priority.
Memo to Stanley: Civilians are the first casualties of armed conflict. The more of them you kill, the more their survivors will want to kill you.
Iraq is now a “democracy,” but so fractured that a government cannot be assembled. The weakness of the government leads to anger or opportunism among the populace, which leads to shootings and car bombings and suicide attacks, which leads to calls for increased security. U.S. “combat” forces are due to depart Iraq this summer (wink, wink), but don’t fret, the Americans aren’t going anywhere – not with billions of gallons of proven oil reserves under their semi-permanent and permanent military facilities, not to mention the largest embassy complex on the planet.
As author Kevin Phillips said, the U.S. military is now an “oil protection force.” Spread your world map out and notice where U.S. military facilities or rapid deployment resources are positioned, and the correlation between oil supplies and America’s “strategic interests” become sickeningly clear. “Strategic interests” is a euphemism the U.S. employs to give itself the right to use force wherever it deems appropriate.
In other words, where there is oil there are U.S. forces. This is the true fight for freedom and the American way of life.
Our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are undeclared. Under the Constitution, only Congress has the authority to declare war. Dick Cheney still laughs about how easy it was to get around that minor stipulation.
Nine years in Afghanistan, seven years in Iraq. Do you feel safer? Has the sacrifice in blood and coin been worth it?
Meanwhile, the source of much of the conflict between the Arab world and the west is ignored: Israel and the Palestinians. Today, in fact, Israeli defense forces attacked a flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza, killing between ten and nineteen people depending on what news sources you believe. Naturally, the Israelis claim they were fired upon by the civilians in the flotilla, or battled at close quarters by humanitarian activists armed with knives and clubs. Right. We’re expected to believe that a group of humanitarian activists would choose to take on the Israeli army.
World leaders – with the exception of the U.S., of course -- have been quick to condemn Israel’s latest actions as disproportionate. This is the same condemnation that was leveled when Israel launched a brutal attack against Gaza in 2009. More than 1,000 Palestinians were killed and much of Gaza’s infrastructure destroyed during that campaign – the point of which was to demonstrate to the people of Gaza the futility of siding with Hamas.
Israel has since blockaded Gaza, exacerbating a humanitarian crisis that the world would not tolerate were it happening anyplace else, but when it comes to Israel and the Palestinians, all bets are off, and the political and diplomatic justifications for saying and doing nothing become as contorted as the lengths taken to ignore all moral questions.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Poem - Flag Burning
I sat with my buddy Dave
In his manicured back yard
The Weber grill smoked and our New York steaks
Hissed and dripped
We drank our bottles of Corona in silence
A dove cooed and the wind danced in the
Chinese elm above our heads
And old Vin Scully called the Dodgers-Cubs game
Dave used to talk a lot, laugh a lot
But that was before Jimmy joined the Army
And got posted to Iraq
Jimmy was a decent kid, tall and skinny
With his father’s strong hands and his mother’s green eyes
Dave was against Jimmy joining
I remember him saying,
“There’s no reason for this war.”
Twenty-seven days after he landed in Iraq
Jimmy got blown to bits by an IED
They found his dog tags and a bloody boot
The Army major that came to Dave’s door
Said the nation owed Jimmy a debt of gratitude
Dave told the man: “Get off my porch.”
And then Dave quit talking and started dying
His grief eating him the same way we ate our steaks
One bite at a time, chewing slowly
Dave soaked the folded flag the Army gave him
With gasoline and put a match to it
In his peaceful American yard
On Memorial Day
In his manicured back yard
The Weber grill smoked and our New York steaks
Hissed and dripped
We drank our bottles of Corona in silence
A dove cooed and the wind danced in the
Chinese elm above our heads
And old Vin Scully called the Dodgers-Cubs game
Dave used to talk a lot, laugh a lot
But that was before Jimmy joined the Army
And got posted to Iraq
Jimmy was a decent kid, tall and skinny
With his father’s strong hands and his mother’s green eyes
Dave was against Jimmy joining
I remember him saying,
“There’s no reason for this war.”
Twenty-seven days after he landed in Iraq
Jimmy got blown to bits by an IED
They found his dog tags and a bloody boot
The Army major that came to Dave’s door
Said the nation owed Jimmy a debt of gratitude
Dave told the man: “Get off my porch.”
And then Dave quit talking and started dying
His grief eating him the same way we ate our steaks
One bite at a time, chewing slowly
Dave soaked the folded flag the Army gave him
With gasoline and put a match to it
In his peaceful American yard
On Memorial Day
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Poem - Calamity
Caused by the greed of man
The insatiable desire for profit
At any cost
Millions of gallons of oil
Flowing
Oozing
Seeping
Toward the pristine marshes
Along the Louisiana coastline
BP talks
The US Government talks
The media tries to explain
A golden chain of deceit stretches from one corporate
Boardroom to the next;
The best lawyers in the land seek
To minimize the damage;
PR flacks spin like ice dancers
The oil keeps flowing
But even staring down disaster
The oil barons seek to drill and pump and destroy
And our cowardly government can’t say no
The barons and the government regulators
Have slept in the same bed for too long
We the People and our planet
Are treated like pawns
In their great game
The insatiable desire for profit
At any cost
Millions of gallons of oil
Flowing
Oozing
Seeping
Toward the pristine marshes
Along the Louisiana coastline
BP talks
The US Government talks
The media tries to explain
A golden chain of deceit stretches from one corporate
Boardroom to the next;
The best lawyers in the land seek
To minimize the damage;
PR flacks spin like ice dancers
The oil keeps flowing
But even staring down disaster
The oil barons seek to drill and pump and destroy
And our cowardly government can’t say no
The barons and the government regulators
Have slept in the same bed for too long
We the People and our planet
Are treated like pawns
In their great game
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Kill the Golden Bear, Once and for All
Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner are slugging it out in California with fistfuls of cash and platoons of campaign consultants.
At stake is the GOP nomination for the Governorship of a state that is reeling under the weight of a $19 billion budget shortfall – and zero new ideas for how to close that stifling gap. All the Schwarzenegger administration can muster is a plan to slash health care services for children and shut-ins, and continue to fund public education at a level where it can only produce Mississippi-type mediocrity – ideas that are sure to be stymied by the Democrats.
Meaning the state budget will be held hostage as it usually is, with much posturing, lies, fabrications, wild speeches and threats of IOU’s and shuttered parks, all through the hot summer and probably into the early Fall.
While that goes on, Whitman the political neophyte and Poizner the nerdy wannabe, argue about who will be tougher on illegal immigrants, who will tame the evil “unions” that pull the Democrats’ strings, and who will create thousands of new, green, good paying jobs. Both candidates harp on their experience in the private sector – as if the for-profit arena is the Holy Grail. The logic goes something like this: “If I can run a company like E-Bay then I can surely run the State of California, and I promise you I will run it like a business.”
Business, you see, is always efficient, cost-effective, fair, just, color blind, mindful of the environment and focused on delivering the products and services people want at a price they can afford.
Government, in contrast, is slow, wasteful, inefficient, unfair, bloated and populated with slackers who can’t cut it in the free market.
That logic is fatally flawed, of course, but truth is elusive on the campaign trail, and in a 30 second TV ad almost anything goes. So Poizner claims that Whitman supports Obama’s immigration policies (which are, what, exactly?) and Whitman claims that Poizner is really a closet liberal who once voted for – hold on here – Al Gore!
Every time I think politics can’t get any dumber up pops some Tea Party spokesperson yammering about taking our country back. I still don’t know whose iron grip the Tea Party folks want to break. I think they mean Barack Obama, but that’s so nonsensical given the Obama Administration’s limp policies that it can’t possibly be true.
But back to California, the steadily expiring Golden Bear. Republicans will fall on their swords before supporting tax increases of any kind. Democrats, on the other hand, face ostracism if they dare support cuts to social services. Talk about stalemate. The state’s structural deficit will never be addressed, Proposition 13 will remain the most sacred of sacred cows, and the oil industry will continue to extract oil from California without paying a dime in severance taxes. The more the state flounders, the more desperate voters become, with the end result being that wing-nut politicians, professional or novice, begin to look attractive, even reasonable.
The Golden Bear is blind in one eye, minus a hind paw, and lame in its front leg; it can barely shuffle along let alone run as it once did from the high sierras to the coast, from the redwoods to the desert. Nobody messed with the Golden Bear back in the day, but that day ended a long time ago.
At stake is the GOP nomination for the Governorship of a state that is reeling under the weight of a $19 billion budget shortfall – and zero new ideas for how to close that stifling gap. All the Schwarzenegger administration can muster is a plan to slash health care services for children and shut-ins, and continue to fund public education at a level where it can only produce Mississippi-type mediocrity – ideas that are sure to be stymied by the Democrats.
Meaning the state budget will be held hostage as it usually is, with much posturing, lies, fabrications, wild speeches and threats of IOU’s and shuttered parks, all through the hot summer and probably into the early Fall.
While that goes on, Whitman the political neophyte and Poizner the nerdy wannabe, argue about who will be tougher on illegal immigrants, who will tame the evil “unions” that pull the Democrats’ strings, and who will create thousands of new, green, good paying jobs. Both candidates harp on their experience in the private sector – as if the for-profit arena is the Holy Grail. The logic goes something like this: “If I can run a company like E-Bay then I can surely run the State of California, and I promise you I will run it like a business.”
Business, you see, is always efficient, cost-effective, fair, just, color blind, mindful of the environment and focused on delivering the products and services people want at a price they can afford.
Government, in contrast, is slow, wasteful, inefficient, unfair, bloated and populated with slackers who can’t cut it in the free market.
That logic is fatally flawed, of course, but truth is elusive on the campaign trail, and in a 30 second TV ad almost anything goes. So Poizner claims that Whitman supports Obama’s immigration policies (which are, what, exactly?) and Whitman claims that Poizner is really a closet liberal who once voted for – hold on here – Al Gore!
Every time I think politics can’t get any dumber up pops some Tea Party spokesperson yammering about taking our country back. I still don’t know whose iron grip the Tea Party folks want to break. I think they mean Barack Obama, but that’s so nonsensical given the Obama Administration’s limp policies that it can’t possibly be true.
But back to California, the steadily expiring Golden Bear. Republicans will fall on their swords before supporting tax increases of any kind. Democrats, on the other hand, face ostracism if they dare support cuts to social services. Talk about stalemate. The state’s structural deficit will never be addressed, Proposition 13 will remain the most sacred of sacred cows, and the oil industry will continue to extract oil from California without paying a dime in severance taxes. The more the state flounders, the more desperate voters become, with the end result being that wing-nut politicians, professional or novice, begin to look attractive, even reasonable.
The Golden Bear is blind in one eye, minus a hind paw, and lame in its front leg; it can barely shuffle along let alone run as it once did from the high sierras to the coast, from the redwoods to the desert. Nobody messed with the Golden Bear back in the day, but that day ended a long time ago.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Goliath vs The Pygmies
Glory to the French and the Greeks. May Americans learn something from our feisty European friends.
When the governments of France or Greece try to screw their people with austerity measures and unravel the social safety net, the people have enough gumption to pour into the streets and make some racket.
By contrast, Americans display all the fire of tree sloths. We’ve been getting screwed for decades, and for the most part have taken our screwing silently and on our knees. Oh, we get exercised about abortion and illegal immigration, make no mistake about that, but when it comes to having our pockets picked clean by corporate greed heads, we can’t be bothered to lift a middle finger in protest.
As the crime goes down we listen to fools like Hannity, Beck, Limbaugh and O’Reilly, swallow the rot they spew about the evil federal government; we watch network news anchors who rarely connect the dots between economic policy and the fate of average Americans; and we routinely vote against our self-interests because we believe the “free” market gibberish peddled from the corporate media.
Our problem isn’t too much government; our problem is too little government. Ever since Ronald Reagan rode into Washington D.C. determined to restore America’s faith in its own myths and fables, corporate power has grown while the countervailing power of government has declined. The results are visible in almost every industry: energy, food, telecommunications, transportation, banking, and finance, health care. Corporations are bigger and more economically and politically potent than at any time since the Gilded Age and the heyday of big trusts. Tea Party faithful constantly evoke the Founding Fathers, but what that rabble conveniently forget is how wary the Founders were of power – particularly power concentrated in too few hands. This is one reason why we have (or had until Bush Jr’s imperial presidency) three co-equal branches of government. Each branch has certain powers along with limits to those powers, all designed to check and balance one another.
Balancing power is the same reason we had anti-trust laws and the Glass-Steagal act.
But the anti-trust laws that helped crack Standard Oil and other trusts have been systematically weakened ever since Reagan set his jellybean jar on the desk in the Oval Office. Regulatory agencies like the Federal Trade Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Labor have been systematically gutted or neutered, tilting the balance of power in favor of the wealthy and corporations. Size and capital equate to political power, lobbying power and campaign contribution (bribery) power. Corporations are not only too big to fail, they are also too big to regulate and control.
It’s not David vs. Goliath anymore – it’s Goliath vs. an unarmed pygmy.
This revolution of power happened right in front of us and with our silent consent. Trade and monetary policies eliminated our jobs and sent them to Mexico, Thailand and China; tax policies favored capital over labor; labor laws were diluted, overturned or ignored without penalty, and our entire economy became dedicated to the enrichment of corporations, investors, speculators and stockholders. Government services that were designed to help ordinary people live better lives were outsourced to corporations who always place profit first and people second. In the brave new universe of the infallible free market, the inherently fair and just free market, the efficient free market, wage earners no longer mattered, and neither did the public’s interest.
The Greeks and the French take to the streets; Americans retreat to the safety of their living rooms, hunker down in front of plasma TV’s with a bucket of fast food and lose themselves in trivia. The corporations and the wealthy have nothing to fear from us; they know how accustomed we’ve become to living on our knees, pygmies in Goliath’s shadow.
When the governments of France or Greece try to screw their people with austerity measures and unravel the social safety net, the people have enough gumption to pour into the streets and make some racket.
By contrast, Americans display all the fire of tree sloths. We’ve been getting screwed for decades, and for the most part have taken our screwing silently and on our knees. Oh, we get exercised about abortion and illegal immigration, make no mistake about that, but when it comes to having our pockets picked clean by corporate greed heads, we can’t be bothered to lift a middle finger in protest.
As the crime goes down we listen to fools like Hannity, Beck, Limbaugh and O’Reilly, swallow the rot they spew about the evil federal government; we watch network news anchors who rarely connect the dots between economic policy and the fate of average Americans; and we routinely vote against our self-interests because we believe the “free” market gibberish peddled from the corporate media.
Our problem isn’t too much government; our problem is too little government. Ever since Ronald Reagan rode into Washington D.C. determined to restore America’s faith in its own myths and fables, corporate power has grown while the countervailing power of government has declined. The results are visible in almost every industry: energy, food, telecommunications, transportation, banking, and finance, health care. Corporations are bigger and more economically and politically potent than at any time since the Gilded Age and the heyday of big trusts. Tea Party faithful constantly evoke the Founding Fathers, but what that rabble conveniently forget is how wary the Founders were of power – particularly power concentrated in too few hands. This is one reason why we have (or had until Bush Jr’s imperial presidency) three co-equal branches of government. Each branch has certain powers along with limits to those powers, all designed to check and balance one another.
Balancing power is the same reason we had anti-trust laws and the Glass-Steagal act.
But the anti-trust laws that helped crack Standard Oil and other trusts have been systematically weakened ever since Reagan set his jellybean jar on the desk in the Oval Office. Regulatory agencies like the Federal Trade Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Labor have been systematically gutted or neutered, tilting the balance of power in favor of the wealthy and corporations. Size and capital equate to political power, lobbying power and campaign contribution (bribery) power. Corporations are not only too big to fail, they are also too big to regulate and control.
It’s not David vs. Goliath anymore – it’s Goliath vs. an unarmed pygmy.
This revolution of power happened right in front of us and with our silent consent. Trade and monetary policies eliminated our jobs and sent them to Mexico, Thailand and China; tax policies favored capital over labor; labor laws were diluted, overturned or ignored without penalty, and our entire economy became dedicated to the enrichment of corporations, investors, speculators and stockholders. Government services that were designed to help ordinary people live better lives were outsourced to corporations who always place profit first and people second. In the brave new universe of the infallible free market, the inherently fair and just free market, the efficient free market, wage earners no longer mattered, and neither did the public’s interest.
The Greeks and the French take to the streets; Americans retreat to the safety of their living rooms, hunker down in front of plasma TV’s with a bucket of fast food and lose themselves in trivia. The corporations and the wealthy have nothing to fear from us; they know how accustomed we’ve become to living on our knees, pygmies in Goliath’s shadow.
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
Voices: Chet Walker, Escondido, California
My son is all into politics. Campaigned for Obama, plastered his Toyota with bumper stickers, the whole bit. I’m getting old and cynical. I tell him not to waste his time trying to make the country better. The only way to clean a cesspool is to drain it, know what I mean? Jeff complains that the whole system is corrupted by money, well, no kidding, Sherlock! I’ve been a plumbing contractor for 38 years, never spent a minute in a college classroom, and I know that money talks – and big money talks really loud. Jeff seems surprised that congressmen and senators and judges are bought every day. It’s like he believes these people get into politics for pure motives or something, or that once they get elected or appointed they become saints. Jeff’s educated, but he’s not smart, know what I mean? Understand the difference? Brains, yes, smarts, no. Jeff wants me to call my congressman about this, my senator about that, as if those people give a rat’s behind for my opinion. I tell him to put himself in their place. Are you going to listen to some schmuck back home or the corporate lobbyist who pays for your TV ads? No brainer, right? Might as well vote for Donald Duck. Rich people own this country, always have and always will. Don’t get me wrong, though – Jeff’s heart is in the right place – it’s just that his head is buried in the sand. You want to know what politics does? I’ll tell you. When you get right down to it all it does is make robbery legal. What the hell do I need it for? Like I don’t have enough aggravation in my daily life? What I care about is whether or not my Mexican crew will show up tomorrow, on time, sober, prepared to do a day’s work. Dumb as posts, some of these Mexicans, but in the plumbing business that’s what you work with. Jeff says I’m racist, but it’s not true. I could pay my guys less, squeeze them a little more, but I don’t and never have. Give me the choice between a Mexican and a white redneck, I take the Mexican every single time. I care about customers who don’t pay my invoices on time and don’t seem concerned about it, like I’m some sort of charitable organization. I care about sub-contractors who cut corners and make me look bad. Yeah, I got plenty to worry about without taking on politics. My son’s a bleeding heart, just like his mother, my first wife, who slept with my partner and screwed me but good in the divorce. Don’t get me started. Politics, OK, that’s one thing, my ex-wife’s a whole different story. I’d rather spend a day digging a trench in hell than talk about her. Know what I mean?
Saturday, May 01, 2010
It's Just Brown People Dying
Imagine for a moment that in the last three years the murder rate in Toronto, Ontario and Vancouver, Canada had shot up 300%, and that by official government statistics more than 20,000 people had died at the hands of drug traffickers, small-time drug dealers, run-of-the-mill thugs and corrupt local, state and federal police. Imagine that Canada’s army now patrols the streets of the three cities, but despite the presence of armed troops, the murder rate continues at the same relentless pace. Some citizens claim the army itself is implicated in the killings. The government insists that the police and the court system are turning the tide, winning the war, but few arrests are ever made, even when murders happen in broad daylight on a crowded avenue. Everyone seems to know who the killers are, but nobody ever sees a thing.
If this were happening in Canada, what would the response be on this side of the border? Would the American media devote some precious airtime – say a quarter of the time devoted to Tiger Woods and his many mistresses -- to report on the killings? Would Diane Sawyer from ABC News or Katie Couric from CBS jet across the border for a hard-hitting interview with Canada’s Prime Minister? Would Anderson Cooper report live from the scene of a killing?
If this were happening in Canada, would it merit more than passing attention from the politicians and pundits in Washington D.C.?
Not to worry -- Canada is as peaceful as ever. It’s Mexico, our southern neighbor that is awash in violence and death and at a risk of becoming a completely failed state, though if you depend for information on the American news media, you’d hardly know it.
Why the selective myopia? Is it because most of the people being murdered are brown-skinned? Is this simply racism, writ large? Given the draconian law recently passed in Arizona – and let us hope the courts strike this perversity from the books - one wonders about the racist bent in the American character.
According to author and journalist Charles Bowden, the U.S. gives Mexico around a half billion dollars a year to fight the drug war. The money is used for training and equipment, logistics, and so on. Half a billion dollars in annual aid, but the war goes on and the murders continue at a pace that makes the U.S. death toll in Iraq look frivolous by comparison. The major drug cartels battle one another for control of territory and routes. Local, state and federal police are supposed to stop the cartels, disrupt supply lines and make arrests, but the “authorities” seem bent on capturing a piece of the business rather than shutting it down.
And, of course, drugs continue to flow across the border, arriving on schedule for those that want or need them.
Everything related to Mexico and the drug business is upside down, Alice in Wonderland style. The cartels are as well armed as the Mexican army, the police act like drug lords, the courts never convict anyone, and trust is the scarcest commodity in the country.
The drug trade has replaced foreign factories as the employer of choice for young Mexican men. Why slave in a maquiladora for peanut wages when you can make real money in the drug business? What’s the incentive to lead a virtuous life when everyone around you is living on the dim side of what law and order remains? The desire for a long life might lose currency when all seems destined to get worse, never better.
What is behind all this death and suffering? Sure, the American appetite for illegal drugs has played a supporting role, but isn’t it more systemic than that? What role has NAFTA played in changing Mexico’s economy? The trade treaty obliterated small farmers and sent thousands, perhaps millions, of people in search of work. When manufacturing jobs began to dry up because production moved to China – whose workers were willing to slave for even less than Mexicans -- millions of Mexican workers had little choice but to make the trek to El Norte. Hard to blame them: on one side, unemployment, drug killings, lawlessness, endemic official corruption, failed institutions; on the other, the unknown in a country that has grown increasingly inhospitable to Mexican immigrants, even though the economies of border states depend on a steady supply of Mexicans willing to do difficult, dangerous, dirty, tedious and low-paying jobs.
Today in Los Angeles it’s estimated that 100,000 people will march to protest Arizona’s new immigration law. Will this demonstration and others like it lead the U.S. to begin asking deeper, more fundamental questions about Mexico?
Don’t count on it.
If this were happening in Canada, what would the response be on this side of the border? Would the American media devote some precious airtime – say a quarter of the time devoted to Tiger Woods and his many mistresses -- to report on the killings? Would Diane Sawyer from ABC News or Katie Couric from CBS jet across the border for a hard-hitting interview with Canada’s Prime Minister? Would Anderson Cooper report live from the scene of a killing?
If this were happening in Canada, would it merit more than passing attention from the politicians and pundits in Washington D.C.?
Not to worry -- Canada is as peaceful as ever. It’s Mexico, our southern neighbor that is awash in violence and death and at a risk of becoming a completely failed state, though if you depend for information on the American news media, you’d hardly know it.
Why the selective myopia? Is it because most of the people being murdered are brown-skinned? Is this simply racism, writ large? Given the draconian law recently passed in Arizona – and let us hope the courts strike this perversity from the books - one wonders about the racist bent in the American character.
According to author and journalist Charles Bowden, the U.S. gives Mexico around a half billion dollars a year to fight the drug war. The money is used for training and equipment, logistics, and so on. Half a billion dollars in annual aid, but the war goes on and the murders continue at a pace that makes the U.S. death toll in Iraq look frivolous by comparison. The major drug cartels battle one another for control of territory and routes. Local, state and federal police are supposed to stop the cartels, disrupt supply lines and make arrests, but the “authorities” seem bent on capturing a piece of the business rather than shutting it down.
And, of course, drugs continue to flow across the border, arriving on schedule for those that want or need them.
Everything related to Mexico and the drug business is upside down, Alice in Wonderland style. The cartels are as well armed as the Mexican army, the police act like drug lords, the courts never convict anyone, and trust is the scarcest commodity in the country.
The drug trade has replaced foreign factories as the employer of choice for young Mexican men. Why slave in a maquiladora for peanut wages when you can make real money in the drug business? What’s the incentive to lead a virtuous life when everyone around you is living on the dim side of what law and order remains? The desire for a long life might lose currency when all seems destined to get worse, never better.
What is behind all this death and suffering? Sure, the American appetite for illegal drugs has played a supporting role, but isn’t it more systemic than that? What role has NAFTA played in changing Mexico’s economy? The trade treaty obliterated small farmers and sent thousands, perhaps millions, of people in search of work. When manufacturing jobs began to dry up because production moved to China – whose workers were willing to slave for even less than Mexicans -- millions of Mexican workers had little choice but to make the trek to El Norte. Hard to blame them: on one side, unemployment, drug killings, lawlessness, endemic official corruption, failed institutions; on the other, the unknown in a country that has grown increasingly inhospitable to Mexican immigrants, even though the economies of border states depend on a steady supply of Mexicans willing to do difficult, dangerous, dirty, tedious and low-paying jobs.
Today in Los Angeles it’s estimated that 100,000 people will march to protest Arizona’s new immigration law. Will this demonstration and others like it lead the U.S. to begin asking deeper, more fundamental questions about Mexico?
Don’t count on it.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Boiling Point
If you’re an average American who works for wages you should be madder than hell, and if you’re not, well, maybe you’re deaf, dumb and blind, comatose from habitual drug use or just too damn busy trying to earn a living to pay attention to the heist that has been perpetrated on you for the last thirty years or so.
We’ve been bottle-fed poison Kool-Aid.
I’m talking the Reagan Revolution, supply side economics, union busting, disdain for the environment, and a steady expansion of corporate power at the expense of wage earners, consumers and, in some cases, stock holders. Ronnie rode tall in the saddle and spouted platitudes about the American Dream, hard work, pulling oneself up by his or her bootstraps, the glory of capitalism, shining cities on far away hills reserved for the very rich and fair skinned.
Nothing’s been the same since that seismic shift in the political landscape. Democrats panicked and moved rightward, closer to Reagan’s long shadow, and in the process abandoned their historical constituencies. Today, once you sift through the hyperbole and the posturing and the disinformation talking points, it’s impossible to tell a Democrat from a Republican; both take money from Big Business and worship at the crooked temple of crony capitalism.
We’ve been lied to.
Working people should be furious, steaming, bursting with rage, and these feelings should – unlike those light-skinned Tea Party whack jobs who are mainly pissed off at becoming a demographic minority and rail against liberals and phantom socialists because at least doing so gives them a target -- be directed where they belong and where they might make change possible.
We’ve been lulled to sleep by fairy tales and folk tales, myth and fantasy.
Here’s the truth: Goldman Sachs recently reported its first quarter earnings, a tidy sum of $3.5 billion. Not bad for a firm that was on the ropes and might have expired save for Henry Paulson and an infusion of our dollars; not bad for a firm that may soon be under investigation from the SEC, though that possibility is unlikely to keep the politically-connected folks at Goldman awake at night. They’ll take a hand slap for their pals in the financial services industry, if they have to, but then it will be back to business as usual. Goldman knows this, and so does the government. But the charade is useful on the off chance the public wakes up and realizes how thoroughly it has been deceived.
Timothy Geithner, Wall Street alum and current Treasury Secretary, was on ABC’s Good Morning America the other day, spinning his tale of financial industry reform. According to TG, legislation now worming its way through Congress will make future bank bailouts unlikely, prevent banks from growing into behemoths (too late, TG! the handful of major banks left are already behemoth-size and get to stay that way), and bring derivatives and other esoteric financial instruments out of the darkness and into the light of day. Oh, and TG also advanced the laughable fiction that the American economy is growing stronger. Yes, TG of Wall Street said that. He could just as well have claimed that white is black, black is white, nicotine isn’t addictive and Oxycontin is good for the soul.
Stronger? Cities, counties and state governments are broke, cutting back essential services that primarily benefit the poor, laying off workers, bitching about pension obligations, demanding wage concessions, firing teachers and shortening the school year. Unemployment is still sky high and the pace of home foreclosures isn’t slowing. Where except on Wall Street and K Street in Washington D.C. are these signs of strength? Get with the program, sucker: Wall Street investors and speculators are feeling optimistic, and what else matters in America but how the investor class feels? Our entire economy is organized to make the investor class happy.
Fuck Main Street.
Yeah, raging mad, short of breath, heart banging in the chest like a piston gone berserk. Every industry is too fucking big to fail: banking, insurance, telecommunications, energy, food. Under the banner of “capitalism” and “free enterprise” the corporate honchos and their lobbying firms wrote the rules that became the laws that allowed them to create profitable monopolies. And guess what? They have no intention of giving up those monopolies. CEO’s talk a good game about competition and how it brings out the best in people and companies and weeds out the weak, timid and slow, but it’s all bullshit. Like Russian mobsters, CEO’s want a rigged game and a reliable revenue stream. Why compete when you can acquire your competition and grow, grow, grow, free from anti-trust hassles?
We’ve been molested, like deaf altar boys.
Reagan’s homilies and Clinton’s betrayal of working people with NAFTA sent American jobs out of this country like roaches running from ultraviolet light; first it was Mexico, and after that Taiwan and Thailand, Vietnam, and then the Promised Land of cheap, exploitable labor: China. China, the corporate CEO’s wet dream. Cheap labor, no unions or pesky EPA regulations to grapple with, no OSHA headaches or wage disputes. China and Wal-Mart gave us low prices for people who make peanut wages – and this was, is, touted as a miraculous thing, that though you toil 40 hours a week for minimum wage at a dead-end job, you can still buy the latest crap at Wal-Mart. Thank you, China and your exploited workers. Then Bush Jr’s complete and total fucking of working people, the environment, and the constitution.
The campaign money, the lobbyists, the buying and selling of politicians, judges, regulators, pollsters and journalists that is now part and parcel of our political system have produced a bumper crop of social injustice.
Aren’t you sick of it?
Might as well get used to it because it’s probably here to stay.
Our rectums are bleeding, swollen, torn from the abuse we’ve taken at the hands of crooked politicians and criminal corporations. Take a good look around with your eyes wide open: note the devastation made possible by our collective passivity.
We’ve been bottle-fed poison Kool-Aid.
I’m talking the Reagan Revolution, supply side economics, union busting, disdain for the environment, and a steady expansion of corporate power at the expense of wage earners, consumers and, in some cases, stock holders. Ronnie rode tall in the saddle and spouted platitudes about the American Dream, hard work, pulling oneself up by his or her bootstraps, the glory of capitalism, shining cities on far away hills reserved for the very rich and fair skinned.
Nothing’s been the same since that seismic shift in the political landscape. Democrats panicked and moved rightward, closer to Reagan’s long shadow, and in the process abandoned their historical constituencies. Today, once you sift through the hyperbole and the posturing and the disinformation talking points, it’s impossible to tell a Democrat from a Republican; both take money from Big Business and worship at the crooked temple of crony capitalism.
We’ve been lied to.
Working people should be furious, steaming, bursting with rage, and these feelings should – unlike those light-skinned Tea Party whack jobs who are mainly pissed off at becoming a demographic minority and rail against liberals and phantom socialists because at least doing so gives them a target -- be directed where they belong and where they might make change possible.
We’ve been lulled to sleep by fairy tales and folk tales, myth and fantasy.
Here’s the truth: Goldman Sachs recently reported its first quarter earnings, a tidy sum of $3.5 billion. Not bad for a firm that was on the ropes and might have expired save for Henry Paulson and an infusion of our dollars; not bad for a firm that may soon be under investigation from the SEC, though that possibility is unlikely to keep the politically-connected folks at Goldman awake at night. They’ll take a hand slap for their pals in the financial services industry, if they have to, but then it will be back to business as usual. Goldman knows this, and so does the government. But the charade is useful on the off chance the public wakes up and realizes how thoroughly it has been deceived.
Timothy Geithner, Wall Street alum and current Treasury Secretary, was on ABC’s Good Morning America the other day, spinning his tale of financial industry reform. According to TG, legislation now worming its way through Congress will make future bank bailouts unlikely, prevent banks from growing into behemoths (too late, TG! the handful of major banks left are already behemoth-size and get to stay that way), and bring derivatives and other esoteric financial instruments out of the darkness and into the light of day. Oh, and TG also advanced the laughable fiction that the American economy is growing stronger. Yes, TG of Wall Street said that. He could just as well have claimed that white is black, black is white, nicotine isn’t addictive and Oxycontin is good for the soul.
Stronger? Cities, counties and state governments are broke, cutting back essential services that primarily benefit the poor, laying off workers, bitching about pension obligations, demanding wage concessions, firing teachers and shortening the school year. Unemployment is still sky high and the pace of home foreclosures isn’t slowing. Where except on Wall Street and K Street in Washington D.C. are these signs of strength? Get with the program, sucker: Wall Street investors and speculators are feeling optimistic, and what else matters in America but how the investor class feels? Our entire economy is organized to make the investor class happy.
Fuck Main Street.
Yeah, raging mad, short of breath, heart banging in the chest like a piston gone berserk. Every industry is too fucking big to fail: banking, insurance, telecommunications, energy, food. Under the banner of “capitalism” and “free enterprise” the corporate honchos and their lobbying firms wrote the rules that became the laws that allowed them to create profitable monopolies. And guess what? They have no intention of giving up those monopolies. CEO’s talk a good game about competition and how it brings out the best in people and companies and weeds out the weak, timid and slow, but it’s all bullshit. Like Russian mobsters, CEO’s want a rigged game and a reliable revenue stream. Why compete when you can acquire your competition and grow, grow, grow, free from anti-trust hassles?
We’ve been molested, like deaf altar boys.
Reagan’s homilies and Clinton’s betrayal of working people with NAFTA sent American jobs out of this country like roaches running from ultraviolet light; first it was Mexico, and after that Taiwan and Thailand, Vietnam, and then the Promised Land of cheap, exploitable labor: China. China, the corporate CEO’s wet dream. Cheap labor, no unions or pesky EPA regulations to grapple with, no OSHA headaches or wage disputes. China and Wal-Mart gave us low prices for people who make peanut wages – and this was, is, touted as a miraculous thing, that though you toil 40 hours a week for minimum wage at a dead-end job, you can still buy the latest crap at Wal-Mart. Thank you, China and your exploited workers. Then Bush Jr’s complete and total fucking of working people, the environment, and the constitution.
The campaign money, the lobbyists, the buying and selling of politicians, judges, regulators, pollsters and journalists that is now part and parcel of our political system have produced a bumper crop of social injustice.
Aren’t you sick of it?
Might as well get used to it because it’s probably here to stay.
Our rectums are bleeding, swollen, torn from the abuse we’ve taken at the hands of crooked politicians and criminal corporations. Take a good look around with your eyes wide open: note the devastation made possible by our collective passivity.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Who Are These People?
Let me make this clear at the outset: the Tea Party does not speak for me. I prefer to think for myself, speak for myself, and not be swayed by the worst excesses of a mob mentality.
Who do these people want to take the nation back from? Do they really think Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are socialists or are they just flat stupid, like their heroine, Sarah Palin? If Obama, Pelosi and Reid are socialists, I’m a fascist. The problem with Obama is not that he leans too far left but that he’s too wedded to the center. Putting Obama on a poster with Chairman Mao is like putting Adolf Hitler on the same poster with Saint Francis of Assisi – it just makes no sense.
Here’s another thing: I don’t mind paying my fair share of income taxes, as long as the money is used to enhance the common good. I like smooth roads and highways, safe airline travel, national parks, clean air, drinking water and oceans, and sensible regulation that prevents too much power from concentrating in too few hands.
What I don’t like is watching public dollars siphoned off for private gain or wasted on wars of choice or for maintaining a gargantuan military/security/intelligence apparatus. Although I’d like to keep more of the money I earn, I’m not in favor of abolishing the federal income tax, as the Tea Party faithful advocate at every turn. That’s a ludicrous idea in a complex, interconnected society, but then again, most of the ideas parroted by the Tea Party are ludicrous.
But, OK, it’s a kick to mass in the streets with like minded folks, carrying a picket sign, chanting slogans (even totally goofy slogans), and making your opinion known.
Where was the Tea Party when Bush and Cheney were raping the Constitution, fabricating a rational to invade Iraq, torturing detainees, and giving the richest Americans generous tax breaks?
Who do these people want to take the nation back from? Do they really think Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are socialists or are they just flat stupid, like their heroine, Sarah Palin? If Obama, Pelosi and Reid are socialists, I’m a fascist. The problem with Obama is not that he leans too far left but that he’s too wedded to the center. Putting Obama on a poster with Chairman Mao is like putting Adolf Hitler on the same poster with Saint Francis of Assisi – it just makes no sense.
Here’s another thing: I don’t mind paying my fair share of income taxes, as long as the money is used to enhance the common good. I like smooth roads and highways, safe airline travel, national parks, clean air, drinking water and oceans, and sensible regulation that prevents too much power from concentrating in too few hands.
What I don’t like is watching public dollars siphoned off for private gain or wasted on wars of choice or for maintaining a gargantuan military/security/intelligence apparatus. Although I’d like to keep more of the money I earn, I’m not in favor of abolishing the federal income tax, as the Tea Party faithful advocate at every turn. That’s a ludicrous idea in a complex, interconnected society, but then again, most of the ideas parroted by the Tea Party are ludicrous.
But, OK, it’s a kick to mass in the streets with like minded folks, carrying a picket sign, chanting slogans (even totally goofy slogans), and making your opinion known.
Where was the Tea Party when Bush and Cheney were raping the Constitution, fabricating a rational to invade Iraq, torturing detainees, and giving the richest Americans generous tax breaks?
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
We're Back, Baby!
The segment on Good Morning America began with the obligatory shot of the trading floor on the New York Stock Exchange, and a breathless voice over about the surging Dow Jones Industrial Average, now above 11,000 points for the first time in more than a year. “U.S. Economy on the Mend” read the caption.
If you reside in the real world of work, wages and debt, mainstream media coverage of the economy never ceases to amuse. The network one watches doesn’t make a difference because they all report the same way, with the stock market portrayed as the Be All, End All, harbinger of the U.S. economy. If the market is up it must mean that the economy is sound. The corporate frame around the story is fitted so tight that it makes the report virtually meaningless.
The surging Dow’s impact on consumers follows the rosy stock report. No mention of jobs or wages, just a straight leap to a prediction of consumer behavior, whether or not more homes and cars will be sold, now that the economy is vibrating again and our woes are behind us. Break out the champagne, in short, because happy days are here again.
Except happy days are not here again, at least not on Elm Street and Main Street and Patriot Avenue – no, on those streets, and hundreds more like them, a hundred or a thousand miles from Wall Street -- jobs are still scarce and homes are still being foreclosed, many sit empty, and broken dreams lay strewn in the street like autumn leaves; city and state governments are broke and cutting services to the poor, leaving streets in disrepair, furloughing employees and letting school teachers go -- though there’s no mention of these cold truths from ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS or CNN. The networks have adopted the feel good narrative and facts aren’t allowed to interfere. Say it with us, America: happy days are here again. America is back!
So, how’re things on your street? When was your last pay increase? How’re you making out with the rent or mortgage, food and fuel costs, college tuition, your IRA, insurance premiums, doctor bills, car payments and other household expenses? You feeling optimistic, now that the Dow is above 11,000? Does that piece of news lift your spirits and fill you with hope?
I didn’t think so. We live in the real world.
If you reside in the real world of work, wages and debt, mainstream media coverage of the economy never ceases to amuse. The network one watches doesn’t make a difference because they all report the same way, with the stock market portrayed as the Be All, End All, harbinger of the U.S. economy. If the market is up it must mean that the economy is sound. The corporate frame around the story is fitted so tight that it makes the report virtually meaningless.
The surging Dow’s impact on consumers follows the rosy stock report. No mention of jobs or wages, just a straight leap to a prediction of consumer behavior, whether or not more homes and cars will be sold, now that the economy is vibrating again and our woes are behind us. Break out the champagne, in short, because happy days are here again.
Except happy days are not here again, at least not on Elm Street and Main Street and Patriot Avenue – no, on those streets, and hundreds more like them, a hundred or a thousand miles from Wall Street -- jobs are still scarce and homes are still being foreclosed, many sit empty, and broken dreams lay strewn in the street like autumn leaves; city and state governments are broke and cutting services to the poor, leaving streets in disrepair, furloughing employees and letting school teachers go -- though there’s no mention of these cold truths from ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS or CNN. The networks have adopted the feel good narrative and facts aren’t allowed to interfere. Say it with us, America: happy days are here again. America is back!
So, how’re things on your street? When was your last pay increase? How’re you making out with the rent or mortgage, food and fuel costs, college tuition, your IRA, insurance premiums, doctor bills, car payments and other household expenses? You feeling optimistic, now that the Dow is above 11,000? Does that piece of news lift your spirits and fill you with hope?
I didn’t think so. We live in the real world.
Saturday, April 03, 2010
Liar, Liar
I hate to be lied to, whether by one of my children or the President of the United States.
Our president was in Afghanistan recently, meeting with our corrupt surrogate, Hamid Karzai, and then, clad in his Air Force One jacket, giving a pep talk to the troops. I certainly wouldn’t expect the president to create a somber mood by telling the troops the truth about our situation in Afghanistan, but on the other hand I don’t expect him to outright lie.
But the fact is that all American presidents lie at some point. Perhaps Obama honestly believes that our Afghan adventure wasn’t a war of choice, and that invading the country in 2001 was the only option by which we could punish Al-Qaeda for the 9/11 attacks. Perhaps Obama also believes that the Taliban and Al-Qaeda are one and the same, interchangeable parts, with identical aims and ideals. Perhaps Obama was expressing realistic hope when he said that our presence is paving the way for a golden age of peace and prosperity in a country that has experienced neither in decades. Perhaps Obama knows something that most Americans don’t, some secret that will allow us to “win” this war and one day soon bid Afghanistan fond farewell, with a ticker tape parade through the streets of Kabul.
And perhaps Obama believes in Santa Claus, leprechauns, and the Easter Bunny.
After 9/11 the United States had options besides launching an invasion of Afghanistan and then Iraq, but the public needed vengeance to dampen its shock and fear, George W. Bush needed to look tough, so in we went. Recall that American forces routed the Taliban in 2001 and early 2002, though the rout didn’t stick. If we couldn’t defeat the Taliban then what makes our chances any better today? Why do we need more troops in 2010 than we did in 2002?
The Taliban and Al-Qaeda are allies of convenience, not a united bloc moving in unison toward world domination though characterizing them as such works effectively for manipulating American voters.
What Obama didn’t say the other day is that this war of choice is unwinnable and will continue for many more years, through shifting strategies, changes in command on the ground, ultimatums to the Afghan government and half-hearted promises to NATO. The U.S. will prop Karzai up until he does something so stupid or outrageous that he leaves the U.S. no choice but to remove him. (You can be sure the CIA already has contingency plans drawn to topple Karzai and install a successor.) American forces and contractors will lumber around Afghanistan, chasing the Taliban, counting the dead and wounded, and causing collateral civilian deaths and casualties that will insure the Taliban always has a fresh supply of recruits. Kill one, recruit six is a sure-fire recipe for endless war.
Obama’s dream of an Afghanistan at peace and enjoying prosperity is preposterous. The President is intelligent and knows very well that Afghans have been at war almost continuously for thirty years; peace and prosperity are not on the horizon.
How will this war play out at home? Coupled with the forever occupation of Iraq, the Afghan war will drive federal budget deficits and create political pressure to slash Medicare costs and “reform” Social Security, in addition to blocking efforts to stimulate the economy and put Americans back to work. Such pressure is building now, with major media outlets like the New York Times sounding dire warnings about Social Security. Cutting entitlement programs is promoted as the only way to control the deficit, because, you see, we cannot cut funding for war and occupation and homeland security while our brave troops are in harm’s way.
History is replete with tales of powerful nations that get in over their heads and then find it difficult, if not impossible, to get out. When a nation sinks blood and coin in a foreign adventure the last thing it can accept is departing empty-handed, in disgrace and with its flag in tatters. President Obama knows we’re headed for that fate in Afghanistan, certainly, and possibly in Iraq as well, but for now he plays his commander-in-chief role, distorting the truth in order to exhort the troops.
Several years hence, when Obama writes his memoirs, he’ll assert that he had no choice but to carry the torch handed him by his predecessor.
That will also be a lie.
Our president was in Afghanistan recently, meeting with our corrupt surrogate, Hamid Karzai, and then, clad in his Air Force One jacket, giving a pep talk to the troops. I certainly wouldn’t expect the president to create a somber mood by telling the troops the truth about our situation in Afghanistan, but on the other hand I don’t expect him to outright lie.
But the fact is that all American presidents lie at some point. Perhaps Obama honestly believes that our Afghan adventure wasn’t a war of choice, and that invading the country in 2001 was the only option by which we could punish Al-Qaeda for the 9/11 attacks. Perhaps Obama also believes that the Taliban and Al-Qaeda are one and the same, interchangeable parts, with identical aims and ideals. Perhaps Obama was expressing realistic hope when he said that our presence is paving the way for a golden age of peace and prosperity in a country that has experienced neither in decades. Perhaps Obama knows something that most Americans don’t, some secret that will allow us to “win” this war and one day soon bid Afghanistan fond farewell, with a ticker tape parade through the streets of Kabul.
And perhaps Obama believes in Santa Claus, leprechauns, and the Easter Bunny.
After 9/11 the United States had options besides launching an invasion of Afghanistan and then Iraq, but the public needed vengeance to dampen its shock and fear, George W. Bush needed to look tough, so in we went. Recall that American forces routed the Taliban in 2001 and early 2002, though the rout didn’t stick. If we couldn’t defeat the Taliban then what makes our chances any better today? Why do we need more troops in 2010 than we did in 2002?
The Taliban and Al-Qaeda are allies of convenience, not a united bloc moving in unison toward world domination though characterizing them as such works effectively for manipulating American voters.
What Obama didn’t say the other day is that this war of choice is unwinnable and will continue for many more years, through shifting strategies, changes in command on the ground, ultimatums to the Afghan government and half-hearted promises to NATO. The U.S. will prop Karzai up until he does something so stupid or outrageous that he leaves the U.S. no choice but to remove him. (You can be sure the CIA already has contingency plans drawn to topple Karzai and install a successor.) American forces and contractors will lumber around Afghanistan, chasing the Taliban, counting the dead and wounded, and causing collateral civilian deaths and casualties that will insure the Taliban always has a fresh supply of recruits. Kill one, recruit six is a sure-fire recipe for endless war.
Obama’s dream of an Afghanistan at peace and enjoying prosperity is preposterous. The President is intelligent and knows very well that Afghans have been at war almost continuously for thirty years; peace and prosperity are not on the horizon.
How will this war play out at home? Coupled with the forever occupation of Iraq, the Afghan war will drive federal budget deficits and create political pressure to slash Medicare costs and “reform” Social Security, in addition to blocking efforts to stimulate the economy and put Americans back to work. Such pressure is building now, with major media outlets like the New York Times sounding dire warnings about Social Security. Cutting entitlement programs is promoted as the only way to control the deficit, because, you see, we cannot cut funding for war and occupation and homeland security while our brave troops are in harm’s way.
History is replete with tales of powerful nations that get in over their heads and then find it difficult, if not impossible, to get out. When a nation sinks blood and coin in a foreign adventure the last thing it can accept is departing empty-handed, in disgrace and with its flag in tatters. President Obama knows we’re headed for that fate in Afghanistan, certainly, and possibly in Iraq as well, but for now he plays his commander-in-chief role, distorting the truth in order to exhort the troops.
Several years hence, when Obama writes his memoirs, he’ll assert that he had no choice but to carry the torch handed him by his predecessor.
That will also be a lie.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Mad As Hell in the GOP
The health care bill passed by a narrow margin late Sunday night, with every member of the Republican party voting nay. Afterwards, while the Democrats were hooting and hollering to beat the band, slapping one another on the back, dancing in the polished corridors, jabbering into cell phones and sending out Twitter messages to their supporters, a group of Republicans including John McCain, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner and Tom Coburn gathered in McCain’s cavernous office.
“How about a beer, John?” McCain asked Boehner.
“Hell no!” Boehner snarled. “Gimme scotch, straight up.”
“I’ll take a club soda if you have any,” Senator Coburn, an M.D. in his previous incarnation, said.
“Kentucky sour mash,” Mitch McConnell said, dropping on the sofa. “I’ve got two words for Barack Obama: Tea Party!”
“Gay people are tearing apart the moral fabric of our nation,” said Senator Coburn, bowing his head in silent prayer.
McConnell looked at his colleague, shrugged his shoulders, and raised his glass in mock toast. “With this bill, socialism has come to America. There’s no going back, my friends.”
“Hell no!” Boehner said. “I will not let Democrats slap a tax on tanning salons or on decent Americans who want the freedom to stay tanned year round.”
McCain’s cell phone rang. “Oh shit,” he said, “it’s that dingbat, Sarah Palin. What the fuck can she want? Hey, Sarah, what’s up? Yeah, the bill passed. Why? Well, the other side has more votes than we do. Yeah, sure, I hear what you’re saying but we couldn’t refuse to vote on the bill, it doesn’t work that way. We’ll do our best to tie it up in the Senate with procedural moves, but at the end of the day, the lefties have the votes. What’s that? No, I haven’t looked at your FaceBook page. OK, OK, I’ve got to run. Talk to ya’ later.”
McCain snapped his cell phone shut. “Crazy fucking broad. She’d still be a nobody if it weren’t for me.”
“And you might be president if you’d picked a different running mate,” said Mitch McConnell. “Oh, well, water under the bridge.”
“Hell no!” Boehner said, slamming his glass down on McCain’s desk. “The people of America are angry, I’m angry, my mother’s angry.”
“Is your mother on Medicare, John?” McCain asked with a wink.
“As a matter of fact she is,” Boehner said. “Are you calling me a hypocrite?”
“Who will join me in prayer?” asked Tom Coburn.
“May all Democrats go straight to hell,” said McCain.
“Amen,” said Mitch McConnell.
“Amen,” echoed John Boehner. “Another club soda, Tom? I can’t believe you don’t drink. How the hell can you stay sane in this commie town without a stiff drink now and then?”
“I lean on the Lord,” Coburn said.
Mitch McConnell rolled his eyes. “Where was the Lord tonight, Tom? Why did He sit by and allow the Democrats to shove this terrible bill down the throats of the American people?”
“Ah, shit, Mitch,” Boehner said, “you know as well as we do that the Lord works in mysterious ways. C’mon, how we going to repeal this piece of crap?”
McCain refilled his glass. “We’re going to obstruct, delay, reject, and refuse to ratify anything the Administration proposes from this day forward. We’re going to get back to our core values – protecting the American people from terrorists, exploiting natural resources, and providing tax relief to the wealthy.”
“Hell yes!” Boehner said. “And when we regain control of the House and I become Speaker, I will wreak terrible vengeance on the Democrats.”
“Amen,” said Tom Coburn. “I raise my glass of club soda to that.”
“How about a beer, John?” McCain asked Boehner.
“Hell no!” Boehner snarled. “Gimme scotch, straight up.”
“I’ll take a club soda if you have any,” Senator Coburn, an M.D. in his previous incarnation, said.
“Kentucky sour mash,” Mitch McConnell said, dropping on the sofa. “I’ve got two words for Barack Obama: Tea Party!”
“Gay people are tearing apart the moral fabric of our nation,” said Senator Coburn, bowing his head in silent prayer.
McConnell looked at his colleague, shrugged his shoulders, and raised his glass in mock toast. “With this bill, socialism has come to America. There’s no going back, my friends.”
“Hell no!” Boehner said. “I will not let Democrats slap a tax on tanning salons or on decent Americans who want the freedom to stay tanned year round.”
McCain’s cell phone rang. “Oh shit,” he said, “it’s that dingbat, Sarah Palin. What the fuck can she want? Hey, Sarah, what’s up? Yeah, the bill passed. Why? Well, the other side has more votes than we do. Yeah, sure, I hear what you’re saying but we couldn’t refuse to vote on the bill, it doesn’t work that way. We’ll do our best to tie it up in the Senate with procedural moves, but at the end of the day, the lefties have the votes. What’s that? No, I haven’t looked at your FaceBook page. OK, OK, I’ve got to run. Talk to ya’ later.”
McCain snapped his cell phone shut. “Crazy fucking broad. She’d still be a nobody if it weren’t for me.”
“And you might be president if you’d picked a different running mate,” said Mitch McConnell. “Oh, well, water under the bridge.”
“Hell no!” Boehner said, slamming his glass down on McCain’s desk. “The people of America are angry, I’m angry, my mother’s angry.”
“Is your mother on Medicare, John?” McCain asked with a wink.
“As a matter of fact she is,” Boehner said. “Are you calling me a hypocrite?”
“Who will join me in prayer?” asked Tom Coburn.
“May all Democrats go straight to hell,” said McCain.
“Amen,” said Mitch McConnell.
“Amen,” echoed John Boehner. “Another club soda, Tom? I can’t believe you don’t drink. How the hell can you stay sane in this commie town without a stiff drink now and then?”
“I lean on the Lord,” Coburn said.
Mitch McConnell rolled his eyes. “Where was the Lord tonight, Tom? Why did He sit by and allow the Democrats to shove this terrible bill down the throats of the American people?”
“Ah, shit, Mitch,” Boehner said, “you know as well as we do that the Lord works in mysterious ways. C’mon, how we going to repeal this piece of crap?”
McCain refilled his glass. “We’re going to obstruct, delay, reject, and refuse to ratify anything the Administration proposes from this day forward. We’re going to get back to our core values – protecting the American people from terrorists, exploiting natural resources, and providing tax relief to the wealthy.”
“Hell yes!” Boehner said. “And when we regain control of the House and I become Speaker, I will wreak terrible vengeance on the Democrats.”
“Amen,” said Tom Coburn. “I raise my glass of club soda to that.”
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Health Care Flim Flam
You’d think the end of the world is nigh the way President Obama and the Democrats are talking about the health care bill. “Now or never,” they say, or “a flawed bill is better than no bill,” and “if we don’t pass a bill now, we won’t have another chance.” Much of the jabber is of a political nature, with the Democrats focused on the implications of failing to pass a bill rather than passing a bill that will really qualify as “reform.” Obama is campaigning for the bill as if his political future depends on it, framing his talk as the American people against the special interests, which is about as dishonest as it gets if you examine the history of this legislation over the past year.
The special interests -- insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, hospital lobbies, the American Medical Association, the United States Chamber of Commerce – controlled the debate from the outset. The first thing they made sure of was to sweep real reform from the table by dismissing Medicare for All as unrealistic, even though a majority of Americans support expanding Medicare. Average people understand that a publicly financed, privately delivered health care system is efficient and cost-effective.
If the bill about to emerge from Congress becomes law, some citizens will be forced to buy health insurance from the very companies that have been reaping profits by denying care, dropping the sick, and creating a gauntlet of barriers that only a team of corporate lawyers can decipher.
What will this “historic reform bill,” as the New York Times describes it, do for you and yours? As far as I can tell, it won’t do squat to reduce my employer’s $10 million annual premium, which means that cost increases will continue to be passed to employees. Another two or three years of double digit premium hikes and it won’t surprise me one bit if my employer is forced to drop its health insurance plan all together.
Politics is said to be the art of the possible, but what can one hope for when what is possible is limited from the opening bell? Regardless of what happens with this health bill, the United States will still have a dismal health care delivery system that is expensive, inefficient and unfair. Sick people, be they young or old, will continue to die unnecessarily because to treat them appropriately would cut into insurance company and Big Pharma profits, and that’s a no-no in a country dominated by corporate interests.
The special interests -- insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, hospital lobbies, the American Medical Association, the United States Chamber of Commerce – controlled the debate from the outset. The first thing they made sure of was to sweep real reform from the table by dismissing Medicare for All as unrealistic, even though a majority of Americans support expanding Medicare. Average people understand that a publicly financed, privately delivered health care system is efficient and cost-effective.
If the bill about to emerge from Congress becomes law, some citizens will be forced to buy health insurance from the very companies that have been reaping profits by denying care, dropping the sick, and creating a gauntlet of barriers that only a team of corporate lawyers can decipher.
What will this “historic reform bill,” as the New York Times describes it, do for you and yours? As far as I can tell, it won’t do squat to reduce my employer’s $10 million annual premium, which means that cost increases will continue to be passed to employees. Another two or three years of double digit premium hikes and it won’t surprise me one bit if my employer is forced to drop its health insurance plan all together.
Politics is said to be the art of the possible, but what can one hope for when what is possible is limited from the opening bell? Regardless of what happens with this health bill, the United States will still have a dismal health care delivery system that is expensive, inefficient and unfair. Sick people, be they young or old, will continue to die unnecessarily because to treat them appropriately would cut into insurance company and Big Pharma profits, and that’s a no-no in a country dominated by corporate interests.
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