October 06, 2006


IMPEACH BUSH




IMPEACH CHENEY


REPUBLICAN CAPITALISM IN ACTION

Today I got an email from Rubber Stamp Radanovich talking about our "booming" economy. Maybe in Radanovich's world things are great. Down here in the working class world it's not so sanguine. In this article Paul Krugman writes about the war on wages. Wal-Mart is the prime example of Republican labor and economic policies in action. It's a company that already pays lousy wages and has lousy benefits. But the greedheads who run the company aren't satisfied. They want to increase their part-time labor force and enact policies that make senior empl0yees leave. It's a great case for not doing business with Wal-Mart and for getting rid of Republicans. The article is at economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2006/10/paul_krugman_th_1.html:

C]onsider the latest news from Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart already has a well-deserved reputation for paying low wages and offering few benefits...; last year, an internal Wal-Mart memo conceded that 46 percent of its workers’ children were either on Medicaid or lacked health insurance. Nonetheless, the memo expressed concern that wages and benefits were rising, in part “because we pay an associate more in salary and benefits as his or her tenure increases.”

The problem from the company’s point of view, then, is that its workers are too loyal; ... not enough workers quit before acquiring the right to higher wages and benefits. Among the policy changes the memo suggested to deal with this problem was a shift to hiring more part-time workers...

And the strategy is being put into effect. ... Wal-Mart ... wants to transform its work force to 40 percent part-time from 20 percent.” Another leaked Wal-Mart memo describes a plan to impose wage caps, so that long-term employees won’t get raises. And the company is taking other steps to keep workers from staying too long: in some stores, according to workers, “managers have suddenly barred older employees with back or leg problems from sitting on stools.”

RIGHT-WING FRAMING

Today's Fresno Bee has a letter from a right-winger attacking someone who complained that Rubber Stamp Radanovich didn't answer a letter. The right-winger used a familiar tactic. He uses name calling to start, referring to a "wacky left wing" group. Right-wingers should look at the militia groups who parade around with Nazi flags, the Christian fundamentalists who pray for Armageddon, and the ill-informed people who think Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11 before they call anyone else "wacky." They're all good little Republicans.

This guy thinks that single payer health care is a bad idea, although we have millions of uninsured in this country. We also have the most expensive health care among the industrialized nations. If right-wingers are so concerned about small business, they would welcome single payer health care.

Our pundit also thinks that staying in Iraq is a swell idea, although it's clearly a fiasco. And, of course, there was a reference to "higher taxes." Where have Bush's tax cuts for the rich left us? We have record deficits and our economic security is in peril because of all the debt we have with China and other countries. In the meantime, critical funding isn't available for anything. Really, who is "wacky"?

IRAQ IS ALREADY LOST

Every assumption and pronouncement by the Bush administration about Iraq has been either wrong or an outright lie. The administration had grandiose plans to take out Saddam Hussein and occupy the country to a reception by the Iraqis of roses and chocolates. Instead, the United States has been met by a fierce insurgency. Why is that a surprise? When do people ever welcome invaders? Staying in Iraq is only going to bleed the United States dry, keeping us from addressing all the other major problems confronting us, and uniting the Moslem world against us. We need a change in course. We need some reality. This article by Robert Parry is at www.consortiumnews.com:

Our March 30, 2003, article said, “Without doubt, the Bush administration misjudged the biggest question of the war: ‘Would the Iraqis fight?’ Happy visions of rose petals and cheers have given way to a grim reality of ambushes and suicide bombs.”

The article added: “But the Bush pattern of miscalculation continues unabated. Bush seems to have cut himself off from internal dissent at the CIA and the Pentagon, where intelligence analysts and field generals warned against the wishful thinking that is proving lethal on the Iraqi battlefields. …

“Instead of recognizing their initial errors and rethinking their war strategy, Bush and his team are pressing forward confidently into what looks like a dreamscape of their own propaganda,” refusing to turn back “no matter how bloody or ghastly their future course might be.”

The article – though unpopular amid the heady war fever of March 2003 – looks almost prescient 3 ½ years later. Indeed, in the wake of recent bleak U.S. intelligence estimates on the Iraq War and Bob Woodward’s book, State of Denial, our dire analysis may even have become Washington’s “conventional wisdom.”