April 29, 2008
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
BUSINESS "EFFICIENCY" IS OVERRATED
When you hear the word "bureaucracy" you tend to think of government. Government can be annoying sometimes. But anyone who thinks there is no bureaucracy in the business sector hasn't worked in business or dealt with corporations. I've worked for businesses my entire working life, and I'm frequently amazed at the fog of bureaucracy you encounter every day. This article by Pierre Tristam is at www.commondreams.org:
Every “expansion of government in business,” Herbert Hoover had said, “poisons the very roots of liberalism — that is, political equality, free speech, free assembly, free press, and equality of opportunity.” That is, exactly the values reactionary Republicanism, aided by the courts it’d been packing since President McKinley’s day, clobbered as it turned the 1920s into “the most expensive orgy in history” (as F. Scott Fitzgerald would describe it in 1931, when the party was over), “the whole upper tenth living with the insouciance of grand dukes and the casualness of call girls.”
That was before the orgies Reagan, that value-added conservative, unleashed in the 1980s, and that his dry-drunk ideological godson George W. Bush managed to squeeze in between two recessions. That they used government to underwrite their upper-class orgies while calling government names is among those elitist ironies men-of-the-people like Reagan and Bush chose not to consort with. It helps to live in the world of slogans.
But in the real world, is it really true that government is the problem, that business does it better than government? Not in my experience. Getting naturalized a citizen of this country was simpler than getting bogus charges taken off my cell phone account. Getting my passport or driver’s license or tags renewed has always been more pleasant and efficient than dealing with the cable company (long since abandoned). Filing taxes? Give me that over dealing with health insurers any day. At least with tax returns, I usually get money back. Insurers just garnishee my wages and shave years off my life. I envy my parents’ comparatively non-existent Medicare bureaucracy, and their complete freedom to choose what doctor they please — up to and including the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, which I’d have to pay for on top of the $5,000 I pay in private health insurance premiums for me and my family for often mediocre services and artery-clogging bureaucratic grief. Seems to me private-sector insurance is the problem here, and government the demonstrable solution.
BUSH'S PERMANENT RECESSION
According to the propaganda, there was a recession at the start of the Bush administration that started in the final stages of the Clinton presidency. Then there was an alleged "robust" recovery. But during Bush's years job growth has not even kept pace with the need for new jobs. Wages and benefits for most of us have been on a steady decline. Bush's defenders blame 9/11 and his wars for some of our problems, but wars have traditionally been good for the economy. Right-wingers claim it took World War II to bring us out the Great Depression, but they take a different tune with George W. Bush. This article by Larry Beinhart is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
The recession of 2001 never ended.
At least not for ordinary Americans.
Ordinary Americans found that their income was declining. From 2001 to 2007, median family income declined -- depending on where you get your figures from -- by somewhere between $500 and $1,000. Median individual income went down by at least $1,000.
The yearly average number of new private sector jobs created from 2001-2008 was just 369,000, not even keeping up with the growth in population. It should be compared to the average number of new private sector jobs created from '92 to 2,000: 1,760,000 per year.
The number of people in manufacturing jobs decreased by over 3 million.
The number who got healthcare at work went down, from 64.2 million to 59.7 million. The number of people without healthcare went up from 38.4 to 46.9 million.
The number of people in poverty increased from 31.6 million to 36.5 million.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
April 27, 2008
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
CENTRAL VALLEY LOONS
I don't know how sociologists or political scientists would explain it, but the Central Valley of California is infested by right wingers. You can get a sampling of that by reading The Fresno Bee. There are some regular right wing correspondents that I've mentioned before. Occasionally, you see letters from other right wingers emerging from their crypts.
We recently had a letter saying that Bush is better than Bill Clinton because the Branch Davidian incident occurred during the Clinton administration. David Koresh, a religious fanatic, set up an armed camp in Waco, Texas, and fired on ATF agents. Koresh and company preferred to burn down their compound rather than surrender peacefully. This guy compared that to the polygamist sect in San Angelo, Texas, that was essentially seized by Texas authorities. Never mind that state authorities were involved in one case, and federal agents in another case. Never mind that Koresh was armed, and that the sect in San Angelo didn't offer armed resistance. Never mind that thousands of body bags have come back from Iraq thanks to George W. Bush.
Then we had another letter from a guy claiming that action against global warming is a socialist plot. He called Al Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth "error-filled," although he didn't cite one error. Never mind that evidence of global warming is everywhere. Trying to save the planet has nothing to do with socialism.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
CENTRAL VALLEY LOONS
I don't know how sociologists or political scientists would explain it, but the Central Valley of California is infested by right wingers. You can get a sampling of that by reading The Fresno Bee. There are some regular right wing correspondents that I've mentioned before. Occasionally, you see letters from other right wingers emerging from their crypts.
We recently had a letter saying that Bush is better than Bill Clinton because the Branch Davidian incident occurred during the Clinton administration. David Koresh, a religious fanatic, set up an armed camp in Waco, Texas, and fired on ATF agents. Koresh and company preferred to burn down their compound rather than surrender peacefully. This guy compared that to the polygamist sect in San Angelo, Texas, that was essentially seized by Texas authorities. Never mind that state authorities were involved in one case, and federal agents in another case. Never mind that Koresh was armed, and that the sect in San Angelo didn't offer armed resistance. Never mind that thousands of body bags have come back from Iraq thanks to George W. Bush.
Then we had another letter from a guy claiming that action against global warming is a socialist plot. He called Al Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth "error-filled," although he didn't cite one error. Never mind that evidence of global warming is everywhere. Trying to save the planet has nothing to do with socialism.
Monday, April 21, 2008
April 21, 2008
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
MCCAIN'S SMOKE AND MIRRORS ECONOMICS
John McCain has said that he doesn't know much about economics, which certainly isn't unique among Republicans. He's offering up the typical Republican menu of tax cuts for the very rich and vague promises about spending cuts elsewhere. This article by Ryan J. Donmoyer and Indira Lakshmanan is at news.yahoo.com:
McCain's proposal, outlined April 15, would extend President George W. Bush's tax cuts, reduce the top corporate rate, repeal the alternative minimum tax and double exemptions for dependents. Price: $3.3 trillion by the end of a President McCain's second term in 2017, according to figures from his campaign and the Treasury.
The Arizona senator said that would be offset by eliminating pork-barrel spending, freezing a portion of the budget, and saving from Medicare spending. He could cut the budget by $100 billion a year ``in a New York minute,'' he said in a Bloomberg Television interview yesterday.
Friday, April 18, 2008
April 18, 2008
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE RIGHT WING EDIFICE IS CRACKING
P. T. Barnum must have known about people who vote for Republicans when he famously said, " A sucker is born every minute." For years now Republicans have persuaded people to vote against their self-interests with a host of irrelevant distractions. We heard talk of "values." We've heard about how the country has gone to heck since the Supreme Court ruled that school-sanctioned school prayer was unconstitutional. We've been told to turn a wary eye toward those "other" people, such as racial minorities, immigrants, feminists, and gays. We've been told that a fair and progressive tax system is "socialism" and "class warfare." Barack Obama is sending a chill down the spines of the regressive right when he openly talks about the real reasons people are angry. This column by David Michael Green is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Of course, that turned the right absolutely apoplectic. You can argue with them about tax cuts (which were really tax transfers) and they'll just call you stupid. You can dispute with them about the faux war on terror, and they'll merely label you naive. You can point out the breathtaking stupidity of Iraq, and they'll only question your patriotism. But undermine the whole stupidity-industrial-complex upon which they're fully dependent, and watch them shake with fear and storm in desperation. They know full well that - were Americans ever to elevate their political discourse above a level that wouldn't embarrass your fifth-grader's civics class - the entire premise of the regressive agenda would unravel faster than a yarn store staffed by cats. You'd be able to count the entire national vote for the GOP presidential nominee on two hands and maybe a couple toes. You could fill Guantanamo sixteen times over with all the criminals in and around the Republican Party. And you'd be happy to do it, too.
The idea of an honest discourse in American politics means the unraveling of the entire premise of the regressive movement, and it must be fought with a ferocity that makes Stalingrad look like a dispute over seating arrangements at a dinner party. That is why Obama must be muzzled, and hammered, and especially mocked. Once we breach the wall and start taking an honest political analysis seriously, the tellers of the Big Lies are finished, hated and destroyed.
"INTELLIGENT DESIGN" ARGUMENTS DON'T WORK
We occasionally read or hear comments from creationists who claim that the belief in evolution is what prompted the horrors of Stalinist Russia or other "godless Communists." That conveniently ignores the atrocities committed for centuries by the devout of whatever faith. It also tries to link a biological process to political acts. The scientific evidence for evolution is overwhelming. But the latest creationist wrinkle is to claim that life is simply too complex to have arisen without a "designer." I would have to ask why the "designer" designed disease and parasites, among other things. This commentary by Richard Dawkins is at www.latimes.com:
Theologians attempt two (mutually incompatible and pathetically inadequate) answers to this unanswerable point. Some say their God is not complex but simple. This obviously won't wash. No simple god could design bacterial flagellar motors or universes, let alone forgive sins or impregnate virgins. Presumably recognizing the justice of that, other theologians go to the opposite extreme. They admit that their god is complex but assert that he had no beginning: He was always there and always complex. But if you are going to resort to that facile cop-out, you might as well say flagellar motors were always there. You cannot have it both ways. Visitations from distant star systems are improbable enough to attract ridicule, not least from the advocates of intelligent design themselves. A creator god who had always existed would be far more improbable still.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE RIGHT WING EDIFICE IS CRACKING
P. T. Barnum must have known about people who vote for Republicans when he famously said, " A sucker is born every minute." For years now Republicans have persuaded people to vote against their self-interests with a host of irrelevant distractions. We heard talk of "values." We've heard about how the country has gone to heck since the Supreme Court ruled that school-sanctioned school prayer was unconstitutional. We've been told to turn a wary eye toward those "other" people, such as racial minorities, immigrants, feminists, and gays. We've been told that a fair and progressive tax system is "socialism" and "class warfare." Barack Obama is sending a chill down the spines of the regressive right when he openly talks about the real reasons people are angry. This column by David Michael Green is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Of course, that turned the right absolutely apoplectic. You can argue with them about tax cuts (which were really tax transfers) and they'll just call you stupid. You can dispute with them about the faux war on terror, and they'll merely label you naive. You can point out the breathtaking stupidity of Iraq, and they'll only question your patriotism. But undermine the whole stupidity-industrial-complex upon which they're fully dependent, and watch them shake with fear and storm in desperation. They know full well that - were Americans ever to elevate their political discourse above a level that wouldn't embarrass your fifth-grader's civics class - the entire premise of the regressive agenda would unravel faster than a yarn store staffed by cats. You'd be able to count the entire national vote for the GOP presidential nominee on two hands and maybe a couple toes. You could fill Guantanamo sixteen times over with all the criminals in and around the Republican Party. And you'd be happy to do it, too.
The idea of an honest discourse in American politics means the unraveling of the entire premise of the regressive movement, and it must be fought with a ferocity that makes Stalingrad look like a dispute over seating arrangements at a dinner party. That is why Obama must be muzzled, and hammered, and especially mocked. Once we breach the wall and start taking an honest political analysis seriously, the tellers of the Big Lies are finished, hated and destroyed.
"INTELLIGENT DESIGN" ARGUMENTS DON'T WORK
We occasionally read or hear comments from creationists who claim that the belief in evolution is what prompted the horrors of Stalinist Russia or other "godless Communists." That conveniently ignores the atrocities committed for centuries by the devout of whatever faith. It also tries to link a biological process to political acts. The scientific evidence for evolution is overwhelming. But the latest creationist wrinkle is to claim that life is simply too complex to have arisen without a "designer." I would have to ask why the "designer" designed disease and parasites, among other things. This commentary by Richard Dawkins is at www.latimes.com:
Theologians attempt two (mutually incompatible and pathetically inadequate) answers to this unanswerable point. Some say their God is not complex but simple. This obviously won't wash. No simple god could design bacterial flagellar motors or universes, let alone forgive sins or impregnate virgins. Presumably recognizing the justice of that, other theologians go to the opposite extreme. They admit that their god is complex but assert that he had no beginning: He was always there and always complex. But if you are going to resort to that facile cop-out, you might as well say flagellar motors were always there. You cannot have it both ways. Visitations from distant star systems are improbable enough to attract ridicule, not least from the advocates of intelligent design themselves. A creator god who had always existed would be far more improbable still.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
April 16, 2008
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
ABOUT THAT "BASKET OF CONSUMER GOODS"
Right-wing think tanks, which are really just propaganda merchants, tell us we're living better than ever. We of the working class own DVD players (made in China), televisions (made in China), stereos (made in China), and, by golly, we can probably even go to McDonald's every now and then. They don't mention how our standard of living has been steadily declining since the early 1970's while they pursue globalization and free trade and privatization. In the meantime, the very wealthiest among us are enjoying even greater bounty at our expense. This article by Nicholas von Hoffman is at www.thenation.com:
In his new book, The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker, Steven Greenhouse of the New York Times writes, "Since 1979, hourly earnings for 80 percent of American workers (those in private-sector, non-supervisory jobs) have risen by just 1, after inflation. For male workers, the average hourly wage actually slid by 5 percent since 1979.... the nation's economic pie is growing, but corporations by and large have not given their workers a bigger piece." A 1 percent raise in almost thirty years? Still not bitter?
And who is getting ever larger chunks of pie? The Wall Street Journal has isolated some of the most energetic pie pigs: "the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans earned 21.2 percent of all income in 2005, according to new data from the Internal Revenue Service. That is up sharply from 19 percent in 2004, and surpasses the previous high of 20.8 percent set in 2000, at the peak of the previous bull market in stocks. The bottom 50 percent earned 12.8 percent of all income, down from 13.4 percent in 2004 and a bit less than their 13 percent share in 2000." You can be sure that a substantial portion of the bottom half of the population is living in small towns similar to the ones in which Obama sniffed out a degree of bitterness.
DEGREES OF OPPRESSION
As the Olympic Torch made its way around the world, protestors turned out to highlight China's horrific human rights record in Tibet. But we shouldn't forget that the United States has dropped several notches on the morality meter during the Bush years. We have practiced "preemptive" war. We have tortured. We have abandoned our commitment to the Bill of Rights. The "war on terror" justifies anything and everything. We aren't as bad as China--yet. But we shouldn't even be talking about the United States in the same breath as China when it comes to human rights. This commentary by Mark Morford is at www.sfgate.com:
Overall, even under the deformed and wretched Bush regime and despite how much Dick Cheney's dead raisin of a heart leaps with excitement when he sees the videos of those bloodied and dead Tibetan protesters ("Damn hippies had it coming"), America is still far from the brutality and inhumanity happening right now in Lhasa and beyond.
Or maybe not. For here is what we do have: We have torture . We have a frighteningly simpleminded cowboy-wannabe president who supports and endorses the most inhumane treatment of prisoners imaginable despite its utter failure as a tactic, and this violent belief, this dark energy infects the national bloodstream like prehistoric malaria.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
April 15, 2008
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
CHRISTMAS IN APRIL FOR THE RICH
In the old days of "Saturday Night Live" Garrett Morris did a sketch about a former baseball player turned sportscaster. "Baseball has been very, very good to me," he would say. The wealthiest Americans can look around on April 15 and say that, "George W. Bush has been very, very good to me." While most of us slide down the slope economically, the very wealthy have seen their incomes burgeon thanks to Bush's tax cuts. His tax cuts have dramatically increased inequality and even put our economy at risk. The deficits created by his gifts to the rich have made us heavily dependent on foreign borrowing. This article by Holly Sklar is at www.commondreams.org:
When it comes to cutting taxes for the wealthy, President Bush can truly say, "Mission accomplished."
The richest 1 percent of Americans received about $491 billion in tax breaks between 2001 and 2008. That’s nearly the same amount as U.S. debt held by China — $493 billion — in the form of Treasury securities.
Do you want our government to mortgage more of our nation’s future to finance tax breaks for the rich?
Tax cuts have already helped the richest 1 percent — whose annual incomes average about $1.5 million — increase their share of the nation’s income to a higher level than any year since 1928 on the eve of the Great Depression.
Wall Street’s five biggest firms paid "a record $39 billion in bonuses for 2007, a year when three of the companies suffered the worst quarterly losses in their history" and are eliminating thousands of jobs as losses mount from the subprime mortgage market collapse, reports Bloomberg.
The International Monetary Fund says the United States is in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Yet, we are borrowing money with interest to finance tax cuts for Wall Street executives.
THE FACE OF FASCISM
Fascism has elements that appeal to some people. It offers a sense of stability and security. People like to believe that the harsh aspects of fascism won't affect them. It only affects "other" people. Once again, we should learn from history. This commentary by Stacey Warde is at www.commondreams.org:
The danger of fascism is its seemingly benign mechanisms of control - fear, conformity, the state’s intermingling with religion and corporate enterprise - for keeping a populace in check, for making its people feel content with the way things are and never quick to protest occasional violations of human rights and infringements on their or another’s liberties.
The danger of fascism is its seemingly magical ability - through brilliant propaganda outlets like Fox News - to keep a people resigned to whatever the government does in their name, making them feel secure through its adventures in endless wars and policing the globe and the homeland.
The other great thing about fascism is its capacity for supporting, even indulging, denial on the most massive scale: "We don’t torture. …You can trust us. …If you’re not doing anything wrong, you’ve got nothing to worry about…."
Our phones are tapped, elections rigged, bogus wars planned and executed, real and imagined enemies created, and police acquire more powers to intimidate and harass while more rights are taken away from citizens.
Churches pray for the end of the world and offer their children as sacrifices for the war machine, and collude with the government colluding with the corporations and financial institutions - promising blood, anything, for National Security.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
CHRISTMAS IN APRIL FOR THE RICH
In the old days of "Saturday Night Live" Garrett Morris did a sketch about a former baseball player turned sportscaster. "Baseball has been very, very good to me," he would say. The wealthiest Americans can look around on April 15 and say that, "George W. Bush has been very, very good to me." While most of us slide down the slope economically, the very wealthy have seen their incomes burgeon thanks to Bush's tax cuts. His tax cuts have dramatically increased inequality and even put our economy at risk. The deficits created by his gifts to the rich have made us heavily dependent on foreign borrowing. This article by Holly Sklar is at www.commondreams.org:
When it comes to cutting taxes for the wealthy, President Bush can truly say, "Mission accomplished."
The richest 1 percent of Americans received about $491 billion in tax breaks between 2001 and 2008. That’s nearly the same amount as U.S. debt held by China — $493 billion — in the form of Treasury securities.
Do you want our government to mortgage more of our nation’s future to finance tax breaks for the rich?
Tax cuts have already helped the richest 1 percent — whose annual incomes average about $1.5 million — increase their share of the nation’s income to a higher level than any year since 1928 on the eve of the Great Depression.
Wall Street’s five biggest firms paid "a record $39 billion in bonuses for 2007, a year when three of the companies suffered the worst quarterly losses in their history" and are eliminating thousands of jobs as losses mount from the subprime mortgage market collapse, reports Bloomberg.
The International Monetary Fund says the United States is in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Yet, we are borrowing money with interest to finance tax cuts for Wall Street executives.
THE FACE OF FASCISM
Fascism has elements that appeal to some people. It offers a sense of stability and security. People like to believe that the harsh aspects of fascism won't affect them. It only affects "other" people. Once again, we should learn from history. This commentary by Stacey Warde is at www.commondreams.org:
The danger of fascism is its seemingly benign mechanisms of control - fear, conformity, the state’s intermingling with religion and corporate enterprise - for keeping a populace in check, for making its people feel content with the way things are and never quick to protest occasional violations of human rights and infringements on their or another’s liberties.
The danger of fascism is its seemingly magical ability - through brilliant propaganda outlets like Fox News - to keep a people resigned to whatever the government does in their name, making them feel secure through its adventures in endless wars and policing the globe and the homeland.
The other great thing about fascism is its capacity for supporting, even indulging, denial on the most massive scale: "We don’t torture. …You can trust us. …If you’re not doing anything wrong, you’ve got nothing to worry about…."
Our phones are tapped, elections rigged, bogus wars planned and executed, real and imagined enemies created, and police acquire more powers to intimidate and harass while more rights are taken away from citizens.
Churches pray for the end of the world and offer their children as sacrifices for the war machine, and collude with the government colluding with the corporations and financial institutions - promising blood, anything, for National Security.
Monday, April 14, 2008
April 14, 2008
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
MCCAIN=ELITISM
John McCain and the right-wingers of the Republican party are suddenly in high dudgeon about elitism. Barack Obama said truthfully that working class people in Pennsylvania (and elsewhere) are "bitter" about their declining standard of living. They have voted against their own economic interests by supporting Republicans, who throw up a smokescreen over peripheral issues like guns, abortion, school prayer, gay rights, and illegal immigration. McCain, along with his wife, is reportedly worth $100 million. He has consistently supported policies that enrich the already wealthy (the elite) at the expense of working class Americans everywhere. This commentary by Robert Creamer is at www.huffingtonpost.com:
Damn right they're bitter; they have good reasons to be. And most of those reasons are the economic and trade policies that have -- and continue to be -- championed by George Bush and John McCain.
The McCain campaign is managed by a cadre of Washington-insider special interest lobbyists. He and his current wife are estimated to be worth about $100 million. He reportedly owns eight houses. His let-them-eat-cake economic policies are based on George Bush's failed radical conservative "you're on your own buddy" philosophy. One after another he supported trade agreements that protect the rights of corporations, but ignore the rights of labor, and have devastated one Pennsylvania community after another. He gets most of his campaign cash from the wealthiest corporate interests around. And he has the gall to call Barack Obama an "elitist"?
This is the same Barack Obama who spent years of his life organizing out-of-work steelworkers on the south side of Chicago -- people just like those who live in Allentown or Erie or Pittsburgh or the Monongehela Valley in western Pennsylvania. He stood shoulder to shoulder with them, sat at their kitchen tables, spent hours in their church basements.
EVERY RIGHT TO BE ANGRY
We of the working class have every right to be angry at the government that has consistently betrayed us economically. We should not let ourselves be distracted by the old canard about "class warfare." There has been class warfare all right; the wealthy and corporate elites have waged class warfare on working people for decades. This commentary by Isaiah J. Poole is at ourfuture.org:
Honest discussion about the roots of working-class angst and how to address it has gotten seriously burned in the firestorm of controversy fanned around comments by Sen. Barack Obama that working-class people are "bitter" about the economy and government.
However poorly phrased his original comments were, they were based on a fundamental truth: that conservatism, having failed for more than three decades in its promise to bring broad prosperity to all Americans, has exploited the issues of God, guns and gays—and the lie that government is their enemy—to keep their con going.
For awhile it worked, as millions of voters were convinced to vote against their interests by conservatives armed with polarizing rhetoric. But there is no disputing the anger as these same working-class voters are finding that they've been duped.
The percentage of Americans polled by Gallup who say that they are worse off than they were five years ago —31 percent—is the highest recorded by the polling firm since it started asking the question in the mid-1960s. And that belief is based in reality: Median household income in 2006, $48,201, was lower in inflation-adjusted dollars than it was in 1999, the Census Bureau reports . The latest Democracy Corps memo includes a poll finding that 74 percent of Americans believe the economy is seriously off track.
That same memo also suggests that voters have caught on that conservatives who claimed they were taking government "off the backs" of the working class have put in into the pocket of corporations. "The focus of people’s anger are the corporate special interests that dominate government, producing a demand that politicians make it a priority to take back government for middle class Americans," the memo says.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
MCCAIN=ELITISM
John McCain and the right-wingers of the Republican party are suddenly in high dudgeon about elitism. Barack Obama said truthfully that working class people in Pennsylvania (and elsewhere) are "bitter" about their declining standard of living. They have voted against their own economic interests by supporting Republicans, who throw up a smokescreen over peripheral issues like guns, abortion, school prayer, gay rights, and illegal immigration. McCain, along with his wife, is reportedly worth $100 million. He has consistently supported policies that enrich the already wealthy (the elite) at the expense of working class Americans everywhere. This commentary by Robert Creamer is at www.huffingtonpost.com:
Damn right they're bitter; they have good reasons to be. And most of those reasons are the economic and trade policies that have -- and continue to be -- championed by George Bush and John McCain.
The McCain campaign is managed by a cadre of Washington-insider special interest lobbyists. He and his current wife are estimated to be worth about $100 million. He reportedly owns eight houses. His let-them-eat-cake economic policies are based on George Bush's failed radical conservative "you're on your own buddy" philosophy. One after another he supported trade agreements that protect the rights of corporations, but ignore the rights of labor, and have devastated one Pennsylvania community after another. He gets most of his campaign cash from the wealthiest corporate interests around. And he has the gall to call Barack Obama an "elitist"?
This is the same Barack Obama who spent years of his life organizing out-of-work steelworkers on the south side of Chicago -- people just like those who live in Allentown or Erie or Pittsburgh or the Monongehela Valley in western Pennsylvania. He stood shoulder to shoulder with them, sat at their kitchen tables, spent hours in their church basements.
EVERY RIGHT TO BE ANGRY
We of the working class have every right to be angry at the government that has consistently betrayed us economically. We should not let ourselves be distracted by the old canard about "class warfare." There has been class warfare all right; the wealthy and corporate elites have waged class warfare on working people for decades. This commentary by Isaiah J. Poole is at ourfuture.org:
Honest discussion about the roots of working-class angst and how to address it has gotten seriously burned in the firestorm of controversy fanned around comments by Sen. Barack Obama that working-class people are "bitter" about the economy and government.
However poorly phrased his original comments were, they were based on a fundamental truth: that conservatism, having failed for more than three decades in its promise to bring broad prosperity to all Americans, has exploited the issues of God, guns and gays—and the lie that government is their enemy—to keep their con going.
For awhile it worked, as millions of voters were convinced to vote against their interests by conservatives armed with polarizing rhetoric. But there is no disputing the anger as these same working-class voters are finding that they've been duped.
The percentage of Americans polled by Gallup who say that they are worse off than they were five years ago —31 percent—is the highest recorded by the polling firm since it started asking the question in the mid-1960s. And that belief is based in reality: Median household income in 2006, $48,201, was lower in inflation-adjusted dollars than it was in 1999, the Census Bureau reports . The latest Democracy Corps memo includes a poll finding that 74 percent of Americans believe the economy is seriously off track.
That same memo also suggests that voters have caught on that conservatives who claimed they were taking government "off the backs" of the working class have put in into the pocket of corporations. "The focus of people’s anger are the corporate special interests that dominate government, producing a demand that politicians make it a priority to take back government for middle class Americans," the memo says.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
April 13, 2008
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE FLIP-FLOP EXPRESS
John McCain has repeatedly demonstrated that the pursuit and grasp of power is more important than principle. McCain calls himself a "straight talker," but his record shows he's very willing to change position when it's expedient. During the 2000 presidential campaign George W. Bush's campaign smeared McCain and McCain's family. Bush did "push polling" that suggested McCain had fathered an illegitmate black child. But that hasn't stopped McCain from clinging to Bush like a barnacle on a ship. This editorial is from boston.com:
In 2001, McCain criticized President Bush's tax cuts with their lopsided tilt to the rich. More recently, he has called for extending them. The author of an amendment in 2006 banning torture by US officials, this year he backed Bush's veto of legislation banning torture by US intelligence agencies. The onetime proponent of comprehensive immigration reform now goes along with strictly punitive approaches. In 1998, McCain called for a $1.10 increase in the tax on cigarettes. Last year, he opposed a 61-cent increase in that tax.
The flip-flop on the tobacco tax is typical of the Arizona senator's willingness to trim his sails. In 1998, McCain was such a supporter of raising the tobacco tax to fund a campaign to reduce smoking by youths that industry advertisements blasted the measure as the "McCain Tobacco Tax Bill." McCain accused the tobacco companies of having "sacrificed the truth and our children to their greed." The industry managed eventually to kill the bill when backers failed to get enough Senate support to block a filibuster.
IF ELITISM IS THE ISSUE
I checked out the FOX gabfest that features Chris Wallace and company this morning. There we have major league elitists like Brit Hume and William Kristol criticizing Barack Obama for being elitist. They try to spin Obama's recent remarks about people being "bitter" as elitist because Obama suggested that people get diverted into issues like guns and religion instead of focusing on what government should be doing about wages and health care and the environment. The government shouldn't be focused on flag burning or banning gay marriage or school prayer or forcing creationism into school science classes. It shouldn't be in the business of bashing immigrants, while looking the other way when big employers use illegal immigrants. But that's where right-wingers have taken us. This commentary by Katrina Vanden Heuvel is at www.thenation.com:
Right-wing ABC radio talkshow host John Batchelor has filled my in box in these last 18 hours with e-mails dissecting and skewering what Obama meant when he said at a private April 6 fundraiser that small-town voters in economically distressed areas of Pennsylvania are "bitter." Batchelor and Laura Ingraham and Monica Crowley and Sean Hannity and Rush and O'Reilly are ready and rearing to go, quick to their guns to paint Obama as an elitist. {Read the excerpt from Nation columnist Eric Alterman's "Why We're Liberals" in the April 14th issue of The Nation to understand the cynicism and hypocrisy at the root of the conservative cabal's forty-year campaign.}
Saturday, April 12, 2008
April 12, 2008
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE THINGS THAT DISTRACT US
They're called "wedge" issues. In another context they might be called "divide and conquer." They're the issues that politicians use to distract us from the really important things. Republicans have been skilled at using wedge issues. Richard Nixon used the "Southern strategy" to stir up anger among Southern whites about integration. Since then, Republicans have used issues like abortion, school prayer, flag burning, and anti-immigration rhetoric to distract people from the issues that affect their lives the most. Barack Obama had the temerity to say that out loud in a campaign appearance in San Francisco. This commentary by Catherine Crier is at www.huffingtonpost.com:
Inartful. That is the only fair criticism of this analysis. Let's ask the voters in Pennsylvania these questions. If the 'distracting' issues of guns, gay marriage and abortion were all resolved to their liking, would their economic lives change? How about immigration? If all illegal aliens were to disappear, would those rust belt jobs return? For so many years, such issues have been used to corral blue collar workers into a party and political philosophy that serves the elites in this country. When someone speaks the truth and acknowledges that this sector of our society has been royally deceived, that issues they rally around have little to do with their ultimate welfare, it is time to banish such a person from the campaign trail.
Heaven forbid we should suggest that bitterness might exist in this country of such optimism or that this emotion might be an appropriate and effective reaction to current circumstances. Hillary Clinton countered with this statement. "Well, that is not my experience," she said. "As I travel around Pennsylvania I meet people who are resilient, optimistic, positive...If we start acting like Americans," she said, "and role up our sleeves, we can make sure that America's best years are ahead of us." McCain's spokesman chimed in. "It shows an elitism and condescension towards hardworking Americans that is nothing short of breathtaking...It is hard to imagine someone running for president who is more out of touch with average Americans."
RECLAIMING DEMOCRATIC IDEALS
Somewhere along the way the Democratic party abandoned its ideals and tried to emulate Republicans. We see the horrendous results of Republican policies now, and now is the time for the Democratic party to return to the ideals of FDR and JFK. We need a party that represents the majority of us, not the wealthy elites and corporations. This column by Robert Borosage is at ourfuture.org:
Let me offer a simple set of propositions.
1. Conservatism has failed—and conservatives, while they cannot admit it, understand that. You’ve heard this before, but it is important to repeat it. The failure is not simply that of clueless George. Conservatism failed not because the Bush administration was incompetent, although incompetence has been its hallmark. It failed not because Bush and the DeLay Congress were corrupt, although corruption has been pervasive. Conservatism failed because it is wrong. Wrong about the world. Wrong about the economy. Wrong about the society.
Its imperial and military fantasies led directly to Iraq, surely the worst foreign policy debacle since Vietnam. Its market fundamentalism generated Gilded Age inequality, a Depression-era financial crisis, stagnant wages and rising insecurity, and left America the world’s largest debtor, dependent on the kindness of strangers. Their celebration of deregulation and scorn for government ended up poisoning our kids, with uninspected toxic toys and diseased lunch-room foods.
2. We are headed into not simply a change election, but an election that has the potential to mark a sea change, the end of the conservative era that Reagan launched in 1980 and the beginning of a new era of progressive reform. The election will take place in the midst of an unpopular war and a recession, with over three-fourths of the country looking for a dramatic change in course. Democrats will surely pick up seats in both the House and the Senate.
Democrats know how to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. But the potential is there for an election that changes our course.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE THINGS THAT DISTRACT US
They're called "wedge" issues. In another context they might be called "divide and conquer." They're the issues that politicians use to distract us from the really important things. Republicans have been skilled at using wedge issues. Richard Nixon used the "Southern strategy" to stir up anger among Southern whites about integration. Since then, Republicans have used issues like abortion, school prayer, flag burning, and anti-immigration rhetoric to distract people from the issues that affect their lives the most. Barack Obama had the temerity to say that out loud in a campaign appearance in San Francisco. This commentary by Catherine Crier is at www.huffingtonpost.com:
Inartful. That is the only fair criticism of this analysis. Let's ask the voters in Pennsylvania these questions. If the 'distracting' issues of guns, gay marriage and abortion were all resolved to their liking, would their economic lives change? How about immigration? If all illegal aliens were to disappear, would those rust belt jobs return? For so many years, such issues have been used to corral blue collar workers into a party and political philosophy that serves the elites in this country. When someone speaks the truth and acknowledges that this sector of our society has been royally deceived, that issues they rally around have little to do with their ultimate welfare, it is time to banish such a person from the campaign trail.
Heaven forbid we should suggest that bitterness might exist in this country of such optimism or that this emotion might be an appropriate and effective reaction to current circumstances. Hillary Clinton countered with this statement. "Well, that is not my experience," she said. "As I travel around Pennsylvania I meet people who are resilient, optimistic, positive...If we start acting like Americans," she said, "and role up our sleeves, we can make sure that America's best years are ahead of us." McCain's spokesman chimed in. "It shows an elitism and condescension towards hardworking Americans that is nothing short of breathtaking...It is hard to imagine someone running for president who is more out of touch with average Americans."
RECLAIMING DEMOCRATIC IDEALS
Somewhere along the way the Democratic party abandoned its ideals and tried to emulate Republicans. We see the horrendous results of Republican policies now, and now is the time for the Democratic party to return to the ideals of FDR and JFK. We need a party that represents the majority of us, not the wealthy elites and corporations. This column by Robert Borosage is at ourfuture.org:
Let me offer a simple set of propositions.
1. Conservatism has failed—and conservatives, while they cannot admit it, understand that. You’ve heard this before, but it is important to repeat it. The failure is not simply that of clueless George. Conservatism failed not because the Bush administration was incompetent, although incompetence has been its hallmark. It failed not because Bush and the DeLay Congress were corrupt, although corruption has been pervasive. Conservatism failed because it is wrong. Wrong about the world. Wrong about the economy. Wrong about the society.
Its imperial and military fantasies led directly to Iraq, surely the worst foreign policy debacle since Vietnam. Its market fundamentalism generated Gilded Age inequality, a Depression-era financial crisis, stagnant wages and rising insecurity, and left America the world’s largest debtor, dependent on the kindness of strangers. Their celebration of deregulation and scorn for government ended up poisoning our kids, with uninspected toxic toys and diseased lunch-room foods.
2. We are headed into not simply a change election, but an election that has the potential to mark a sea change, the end of the conservative era that Reagan launched in 1980 and the beginning of a new era of progressive reform. The election will take place in the midst of an unpopular war and a recession, with over three-fourths of the country looking for a dramatic change in course. Democrats will surely pick up seats in both the House and the Senate.
Democrats know how to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. But the potential is there for an election that changes our course.
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
April 09, 2008
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
GOVERNMENT CAN WORK
The right-wing mantra is that "big government" doesn't work. It's too bureaucratic and inefficient. It's a burden on business with all that cumbersome regulation. The private sector, they say, can work much more efficiently. When they get power right-wingers enact a self-fulfilling prophecy. They "prove" that government doesn't work. But government does work with the right people in charge. We're at a stage in our history again when we see the ruins left by conservative government, and we need a progressive government to address so many of our needs. This article by Paul Waldman looks at the claims of the right-wing pundits that the country is really "center-right." The article is at www.prospect.org:
Given the combination of dishonesty, corruption and incompetence that has marked the current administration, it's hard to blame the American people for their distrust. Republicans argue that government can't do anything right, then set about to prove it once they grab government's reins. Each successive Republican administration only provides more evidence for their contention that government is a bumbling beast incapable of solving problems. Few notice that they never deliver on their promises to reduce its size and scope; as a portion of GDP, the postwar federal government was at its biggest during the years of that famed enemy of big government, Ronald Reagan.
And what we hear from the soon-to-be Republican nominee sounds little different from the standard GOP litany: cut spending, cut taxes on the wealthy, have faith in the magic of the market. In other words, you're on your own. As Jacob Hacker put it in a 2005 New Republic article (not currently available on the web), "Call it the vicious cycle of insecurity -- if Americans feel no one can help them, they will back leaders who won't. In the '30s, Democrats saw economic security as the keystone of a broad coalition in support of their party. Today, Republicans appear to see insecurity in the same way." This has certainly been the strategy behind their doomsday predictions on Social Security: convince the public that the system is going bankrupt, and people will be much more open to dismantling it, because what does it matter?
WHY IS THE WEALTH-INCOME GAP A GOOD THING?
A new study shows the growing wealth income gap between the very rich and the rest of us. Some free-market advocates say that the poor and the middle class are living better than ever before because of the "basket of consumer goods" we supposedly have. It's the same asinine argument we've heard before. The claim is that there is no poor person in the United States because people have televisions and VCR's. The reality is that there is considerable hunger in the United States. There is considerable insecurity. You can do your job very well and suddenly find your job gone, or you suddenly don't get wages to keep pace with the cost of living. This article by Sam Zuckerman is at www.sfgate.com:
"We are not seeing shared prosperity," said Jean Ross, director of the California Budget Project, a liberal research group in Sacramento that is helping distribute the report. "There's a pulling away at the top that's leaving the bottom 80 percent of families behind."
The groups responsible for today's study issued a similar report two years ago. And government data show income inequality has been rising for more than 25 years.
The trend reflects a range of factors, according to the report's authors, including stagnant wages at the bottom of the income scale, robust pay increases at the top, and a hollowing out of jobs in the middle as manufacturing employment drops. In addition, investment income has grown faster than wages, benefiting those with large stock and bond portfolios. Government tax, trade and labor policies also contribute, the report contends.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
GOVERNMENT CAN WORK
The right-wing mantra is that "big government" doesn't work. It's too bureaucratic and inefficient. It's a burden on business with all that cumbersome regulation. The private sector, they say, can work much more efficiently. When they get power right-wingers enact a self-fulfilling prophecy. They "prove" that government doesn't work. But government does work with the right people in charge. We're at a stage in our history again when we see the ruins left by conservative government, and we need a progressive government to address so many of our needs. This article by Paul Waldman looks at the claims of the right-wing pundits that the country is really "center-right." The article is at www.prospect.org:
Given the combination of dishonesty, corruption and incompetence that has marked the current administration, it's hard to blame the American people for their distrust. Republicans argue that government can't do anything right, then set about to prove it once they grab government's reins. Each successive Republican administration only provides more evidence for their contention that government is a bumbling beast incapable of solving problems. Few notice that they never deliver on their promises to reduce its size and scope; as a portion of GDP, the postwar federal government was at its biggest during the years of that famed enemy of big government, Ronald Reagan.
And what we hear from the soon-to-be Republican nominee sounds little different from the standard GOP litany: cut spending, cut taxes on the wealthy, have faith in the magic of the market. In other words, you're on your own. As Jacob Hacker put it in a 2005 New Republic article (not currently available on the web), "Call it the vicious cycle of insecurity -- if Americans feel no one can help them, they will back leaders who won't. In the '30s, Democrats saw economic security as the keystone of a broad coalition in support of their party. Today, Republicans appear to see insecurity in the same way." This has certainly been the strategy behind their doomsday predictions on Social Security: convince the public that the system is going bankrupt, and people will be much more open to dismantling it, because what does it matter?
WHY IS THE WEALTH-INCOME GAP A GOOD THING?
A new study shows the growing wealth income gap between the very rich and the rest of us. Some free-market advocates say that the poor and the middle class are living better than ever before because of the "basket of consumer goods" we supposedly have. It's the same asinine argument we've heard before. The claim is that there is no poor person in the United States because people have televisions and VCR's. The reality is that there is considerable hunger in the United States. There is considerable insecurity. You can do your job very well and suddenly find your job gone, or you suddenly don't get wages to keep pace with the cost of living. This article by Sam Zuckerman is at www.sfgate.com:
"We are not seeing shared prosperity," said Jean Ross, director of the California Budget Project, a liberal research group in Sacramento that is helping distribute the report. "There's a pulling away at the top that's leaving the bottom 80 percent of families behind."
The groups responsible for today's study issued a similar report two years ago. And government data show income inequality has been rising for more than 25 years.
The trend reflects a range of factors, according to the report's authors, including stagnant wages at the bottom of the income scale, robust pay increases at the top, and a hollowing out of jobs in the middle as manufacturing employment drops. In addition, investment income has grown faster than wages, benefiting those with large stock and bond portfolios. Government tax, trade and labor policies also contribute, the report contends.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
April 08, 2008
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
IDEOLOGICAL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
It's ironic that George W. Bush has talked about his role in "protecting" the American people. He has used that phrase in describing his "war on terror." The "war on terror" has been costly and an abysmal failure. But, equally disturbing, is the failure of the federal government to live up to its responsibilities in protecting us in other ways. In the past few days we've learned about airlines flying possibly unsafe aircraft. We know that the Bush administration has failed to safeguard the food supply. The interests of agri-business have taken priority over the health of consumers. The failure to regulate home lending has put the economy at risk. This article by Marie Cocco is at www.commondreams.org:
There is little surprise left when someone-a whistle-blower, a member of Congress, a scientist who has been muzzled-reveals fresh insight into the evisceration of health and safety regulation or the retaliatory thrusts the Bush administration takes against those who dare complain. Seen in historical context, the meltdown of the credit markets, the unseemly Wall Street bailout and the shock that federal overseers seemed to display when it all cascaded upon them are merely a larger part of an ugly pattern. "Was someone asleep at the switch?" a puzzled Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., asked of the financial wizards who came before the banking panel.
Not exactly. It is more accurate to say the switch has been turned off.
It has remained in the off position through seven years of scandal, embarrassment-and now, incalculable economic hardship-that would have shamed any other administration into using the regulatory apparatus of the federal government for its stated purpose of safeguarding the public and taxpayers.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
IDEOLOGICAL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
It's ironic that George W. Bush has talked about his role in "protecting" the American people. He has used that phrase in describing his "war on terror." The "war on terror" has been costly and an abysmal failure. But, equally disturbing, is the failure of the federal government to live up to its responsibilities in protecting us in other ways. In the past few days we've learned about airlines flying possibly unsafe aircraft. We know that the Bush administration has failed to safeguard the food supply. The interests of agri-business have taken priority over the health of consumers. The failure to regulate home lending has put the economy at risk. This article by Marie Cocco is at www.commondreams.org:
There is little surprise left when someone-a whistle-blower, a member of Congress, a scientist who has been muzzled-reveals fresh insight into the evisceration of health and safety regulation or the retaliatory thrusts the Bush administration takes against those who dare complain. Seen in historical context, the meltdown of the credit markets, the unseemly Wall Street bailout and the shock that federal overseers seemed to display when it all cascaded upon them are merely a larger part of an ugly pattern. "Was someone asleep at the switch?" a puzzled Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., asked of the financial wizards who came before the banking panel.
Not exactly. It is more accurate to say the switch has been turned off.
It has remained in the off position through seven years of scandal, embarrassment-and now, incalculable economic hardship-that would have shamed any other administration into using the regulatory apparatus of the federal government for its stated purpose of safeguarding the public and taxpayers.
Sunday, April 06, 2008
April 06, 2008
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
BUSH'S WAR MACHINE
In the Bible's Book of Isaiah it says that people will one day beat their swords into plowshares and the lion will lie down with the lamb. We seem to be as far away from that prophecy now as when Isaiah wrote it. We had decades of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, and when the Soviet Union dissolved we were told about a "peace dividend." That also hasn't worked out. The fact is that war and preparation for war is big business. As the quality of our lives declines in the United States, more and more money goes to defense contractors. It parallels the spending that dictators like Hitler and Stalin invested in their war machines. This article by Sherwood Ross is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Under Bush, U.S. military spending is now roughly equal to the combined total of all other nations. What's more, Uncle Sam is the world's Number One arms peddler, selling about half of all weapons bought by the developing nations, and showing few scruples about sales to dictators. The Center for Defense Information reported last year that U.S. arms sales to 25 countries it studied increased 400 percent over 9/11.
Of course, the two criminal 20th Century dictators didn't build their war machines for sport, and neither has Mr. Bush. By mutual agreement in 1939, the "CommuNazis," as they were known, carved up Poland, Hitler invading from the West and Stalin from the East. In the summer of 1941, Overy writes, Hitler remarked "what one needs and does not have, one must conquer." That's not much different from Bush's view of Middle East oil. Having made war on Iraq based on lies and having subjugated that small country by force, Bush is pushing its cabinet to put through a giveaway law to profit the oil companies. And he's threatening oil-rich Iran with an attack.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
BUSH'S WAR MACHINE
In the Bible's Book of Isaiah it says that people will one day beat their swords into plowshares and the lion will lie down with the lamb. We seem to be as far away from that prophecy now as when Isaiah wrote it. We had decades of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, and when the Soviet Union dissolved we were told about a "peace dividend." That also hasn't worked out. The fact is that war and preparation for war is big business. As the quality of our lives declines in the United States, more and more money goes to defense contractors. It parallels the spending that dictators like Hitler and Stalin invested in their war machines. This article by Sherwood Ross is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Under Bush, U.S. military spending is now roughly equal to the combined total of all other nations. What's more, Uncle Sam is the world's Number One arms peddler, selling about half of all weapons bought by the developing nations, and showing few scruples about sales to dictators. The Center for Defense Information reported last year that U.S. arms sales to 25 countries it studied increased 400 percent over 9/11.
Of course, the two criminal 20th Century dictators didn't build their war machines for sport, and neither has Mr. Bush. By mutual agreement in 1939, the "CommuNazis," as they were known, carved up Poland, Hitler invading from the West and Stalin from the East. In the summer of 1941, Overy writes, Hitler remarked "what one needs and does not have, one must conquer." That's not much different from Bush's view of Middle East oil. Having made war on Iraq based on lies and having subjugated that small country by force, Bush is pushing its cabinet to put through a giveaway law to profit the oil companies. And he's threatening oil-rich Iran with an attack.
Saturday, April 05, 2008
April 05, 2008
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
TIME FOR PROGRESS AGAIN
There are differing opinions as to when the country went into reverse and swayed to right-wing politics and philosophy. In this article E. J. Dionne makes the case that it occurred when Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis on April 4, 1968. It was a traumatic year. Robert Kennedy was assassinated just weeks later. The Democratic convention in Chicago was beset by rancor and violence. Vietnam was dragging on and diverting us from what we should have accomplished. Now, 40 years after King's death, and after suffering from toxic conservatism under Reagan, Bush, and Bush, maybe it's time to pick up where we left off in 1968. This column is at www.tnr.com:
Forty years ago, American liberalism suffered a blow from which it has still not recovered. On April 4, 1968, a relatively brief but extraordinary moment of progressive reform ended, and a long period of conservative ascendancy began.
The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the ensuing riots that engulfed the nation's capital and big cities across the country signaled the collapse of liberal hopes in a smoky haze of self-doubt and despair. Conservatives, on the run through much of the decade, found a broad new audience for their warnings against the disorders and disruptions bred by reform.
A shrewd politician named Richard Nixon sensed the direction of the political winds. When President Johnson's commission on urban unrest released its report in early 1968 and blamed the previous year's rioting on "white racism," Nixon would have none of it. The commission, he said, "blames everybody for the riots except the perpetrators of the riots." He urged "retaliation."
THEY AREN'T SO SMART AFTER ALL
The old adage is that you can fool some of the people all of the time and some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time. The right-wing that has controlled the Republican party and its benefactors has succeeded in fooling some of the people all of the time. Even after the train wreck of the Bush administration, there are still hardcore supporters of Bush, his war, and right-wing economic policy. But reality is hitting home for most Americans now. This administration should be taught in history classes as the way not to run a country. This article by David Michael Green is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
The only amazing thing about the desperate attempts by BushCo to wring the very last drops of middle class wealth out of an imploding economy is the breathtaking shortsightedness of the monied class in whose name it’s all being done. Were they all absent from kindergarten that day when Miss Kinnian went over the parable of The Goose That Lays The Golden Eggs? Just who do they imagine will be shelling out the shekels needed to fuel their yachts, once they’ve wrecked the system itself? Lenin was right. These fools are so greedy, and so short-term in their focus, they’ve sold the rope with which to hang themselves. Unfortunately, by the time that happens the rest of us will have long ago drowned in the mud and the blood lapping up against the scaffold.
Brilliant, eh? Well, if the economy has come a cropper, at least the good news is that we’re not condemned to repeat history when it comes to that stubborn little conflict in Iraq. You know, the one that is sucking up all our money, wasting lives by the millions, ruining our military and trashing our good name abroad. Just like in Viet... er, never mind.
Friday, April 04, 2008
April 04, 2008
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
RIGHT WINGERS AND ELITISM
In advertising there is a technique called "snob appeal." The recipient of the ad is told that they're better than the average person. They're smarter, better looking, more hard working, have more common sense, or possess "values." Right wingers for years have talked about "liberal elites," those ivory tower people who just don't know about ordinary Americans and who, in fact, look down on you and me. But if you look at the record it's conservatives who applaud elitism. Dick Cheney recently demonstrated elitism on steroids when he dismissed the concerns we have about Iraq by saying, "So?" This article by Eric Alterman is at www.thenation.com:
It's quite a trick these right-wingers have pulled off, one that might even impress George Orwell. When they dislike a position, they deride it as "elitist," irrespective of the fact that it is supported by a majority of Americans. Personally, they enjoy exactly the same advantages as liberal elitists, but they insist that this does not matter, because they think about those advantages differently. When asked to define just what is so awful about the way liberals think, they fall back on a series of unproven--and ultimately unprovable--accusations of the kind made by totalitarian regimes against their dissidents. Somehow they've managed to persuade the so-called liberal media to repeat these same accusations, despite the rather inconvenient fact that they make no sense. In the meantime, they've managed to discredit virtually all of the people to whom they can successfully attach their wholly meaningless tag. It may not make much sense, but as the folks at American Express have taught us, success is its own reward.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
RIGHT WINGERS AND ELITISM
In advertising there is a technique called "snob appeal." The recipient of the ad is told that they're better than the average person. They're smarter, better looking, more hard working, have more common sense, or possess "values." Right wingers for years have talked about "liberal elites," those ivory tower people who just don't know about ordinary Americans and who, in fact, look down on you and me. But if you look at the record it's conservatives who applaud elitism. Dick Cheney recently demonstrated elitism on steroids when he dismissed the concerns we have about Iraq by saying, "So?" This article by Eric Alterman is at www.thenation.com:
It's quite a trick these right-wingers have pulled off, one that might even impress George Orwell. When they dislike a position, they deride it as "elitist," irrespective of the fact that it is supported by a majority of Americans. Personally, they enjoy exactly the same advantages as liberal elitists, but they insist that this does not matter, because they think about those advantages differently. When asked to define just what is so awful about the way liberals think, they fall back on a series of unproven--and ultimately unprovable--accusations of the kind made by totalitarian regimes against their dissidents. Somehow they've managed to persuade the so-called liberal media to repeat these same accusations, despite the rather inconvenient fact that they make no sense. In the meantime, they've managed to discredit virtually all of the people to whom they can successfully attach their wholly meaningless tag. It may not make much sense, but as the folks at American Express have taught us, success is its own reward.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
March 30, 2008
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE AGE OF BARBARIANS
The United States was founded by men in tune with the Enlightenment. They were intellectuals. But anti-intellectualism has a long and sordid history in the United States. It has been fashionable among some politicians to talk about "pointy-headed" intellectuals, as though being uninformed, bigoted, and jingoistic is a virtue. We've seen anti-intellectualism rise to its apogee with George W. Bush. We should remember that civilization has advanced because of intellectuals such as Isaac Newton, Louis Pasteur, Charles Darwin, John Locke, Albert Einstein, John Maynard Keynes, Thomas Jefferson, and others. This is a review of Susan Jacoby's book The Age of American Unreason at www.boston.com:
Recently added to the list of impending dooms - global warming, a retro-1930s economy, seven more months of sleeping children in campaign ads - come stern warnings from The New Yorker and The New Republic on the death of the printed word. Be it newspapers, magazines, or an archaic instrument called the book, Americans in general, and young ones in particular, are bypassing them with alarming consistency. Novels and serious nonfiction rarely fly off the shelves at our waning independent bookstores. Newspaper circulation is declining; book review sections like the one you're reading are prompting some critics to consider more relevant lines of work like, say, barrel staving. Couple this with the ascendancy of the ever-streaming blogosphere, wireless devices that seem to do all but direct a funeral, and we've entered perilous times indeed.
The vulgarians may be at the gates, but they're "2 bize txtn" or playing water polo on their Wiis to prevent our intellectual culture from plunging further into the muck. That's sort of how Susan Jacoby sees it in her engaging and unrepentantly (and often unbearably) crotchety history of American anti-intellectualism, "The Age of American Unreason."
REPUBLICANS DO CREATE ECONOMIC MESSES
You'll hear or read that the U. S. President, ultimately, has little control over the economy. But I don't agree. It's true that the economy is a very complex business, subject to all kinds of fluctuations, and not all of those fluctuations are under the direct control of the president. But it's no accident that every time a Republican is in the White House we have a lousy economy. It goes all the way back to Herbert Hoover. Republicans believe in laissez-faire, letting business do whatever it wants. They believe in minimal taxes on the very wealthy, while expecting the rest of us to pick up the slack. They believe in holding down wages, busting unions, and outsourcing jobs to cheaper labor markets. They believe "the market" should decide everything, even if "the market" gives us contaminated food, unsafe vehicles and appliances, toxic toys, and inadequate or unaffordable health care. George W. Bush has exemplified the typical Republican crackpot ideas on economics and taken them several steps further. Even more, he has taken the typical hubris of Republican foreign policy and mired us in a war that is unnecessary and endless. This column by Tom Danehy is at www.tucsonweekly.com:
Nevertheless, there are facets to economic theory that do work more often than not, and can therefore be exploited. I contend that George W. Bush, his administration and his cronies have done so to the outrageous benefit of a select few and to the great detriment to the rest of us.
We'll start with energy, the cost of which is having a devastating ripple effect throughout our economy. Remember how one of the first things Bush did was to have Dick Cheney set up that fake energy board, ostensibly to explore ways to make America energy-independent? It was quickly unmasked, but it sent the message to the oil giants that they could do just about anything they wanted as long as a Texas oilman sat in the White House. This has led to staggering profits, the consolidation of power and oil prices that get more ridiculous by the day.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
March 28, 2008
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
SELECTIVE GOVERNMENT HELP
Republicans have been big on the notion of "personal responsibility." You don't need bankruptcy laws, for instance, because people should use "personal responsibility" and not get into debt. Never mind that there are all kinds of different circumstances people encounter. But "personal responsibility" doesn't apply to big corporations. The bailout of Bear Stearns just illustrates the point. The failure to aid the victims of Hurricane Katrina also illustrates the point. This article by Allison Kilkenny is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
The Bush administration and its staff of flying monkeys are either unwilling or incapable of providing American citizens with basic services. Their main failures regard regulation, one of the foundational purposes of having a government in the first place. When the government goons DO decide to perform some kind of regulation, it's usually done to strictly benefit wealthy corporations. Free trade advocates claim this is regulation run amuck, but the bailout is merely a continuation of the selling out of America to the corporation. The act simply masquerades as government regulation, but the truth is that cronyism has infested Washington and Wall Street, alike, resulting in the government's desire to protect the wealth instead of the people.
WE SHOULDN'T BE HOSTAGE TO BIG MONEY
An old maxim advises not to put all your eggs in one basket. Yet that is what we've been doing by transferring so much wealth and power to just a few people at the top of the economic pyramid. We're supposed to trust these people because they're the best and brightest in the worlds of manufacturing, technology, banking, communications, and transportation. We were told that for these wonderful folks to innovate they needed less government regulation. The results have been dismal. Who wants to fly now on airlines that don't maintain their planes? Who feels truly comfortable with the food supply when food is consistently contaminated by e. coli and other pathogens? Who likes the higher phone bills and confusion we get with deregulated phone service? How about energy deregulation? Remember Enron? Now we see what's happening with banking deregulation. We shouldn't be held hostage to what Theodore Roosevelt called "the malefactors of great wealth." This article by James Ridgeway is at www.commondreams.org:
Deregulation has been the mantra on both sides of the aisle since the late 1960s. Long gone are Democrats like Michigan’s Phil Hart who, as chair of the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee, held hearings on the concentration of economic power in the United States, and proposed expanded government regulation of everything from the oil and auto industries to pharmaceuticals to professional sports. Hart believed that because wealth and power were concentrated in the hands of such a small number of corporations, the market economy had become no more than a facade. In this context, what would bring about lower prices and greater productivity and innovation was more government intervention and regulation, not less.
Hart got a Senate building named after him, but his warnings about the threat of unbridled corporate power and consolidation went unheeded. Instead, the rush to deregulation began, first in the transportation sector. Efforts begun under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford came to fruition under Jimmy Carter, who hired deregulation guru Alfred E. Kahn to head the Civil Aeronautics Board, the widely loathed agency responsible for regulating the airline industry. Senator Ted Kennedy and his then aide, future Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, embraced deregulation as a consumer issue, and with their support, Kahn quickly worked his way out of a job: The 1978 Airline Deregulation Act dissolved the CAB and removed most regulation of commercial airlines. Carter also signed into law bills deregulating the railroads and the trucking industry.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
SELECTIVE GOVERNMENT HELP
Republicans have been big on the notion of "personal responsibility." You don't need bankruptcy laws, for instance, because people should use "personal responsibility" and not get into debt. Never mind that there are all kinds of different circumstances people encounter. But "personal responsibility" doesn't apply to big corporations. The bailout of Bear Stearns just illustrates the point. The failure to aid the victims of Hurricane Katrina also illustrates the point. This article by Allison Kilkenny is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
The Bush administration and its staff of flying monkeys are either unwilling or incapable of providing American citizens with basic services. Their main failures regard regulation, one of the foundational purposes of having a government in the first place. When the government goons DO decide to perform some kind of regulation, it's usually done to strictly benefit wealthy corporations. Free trade advocates claim this is regulation run amuck, but the bailout is merely a continuation of the selling out of America to the corporation. The act simply masquerades as government regulation, but the truth is that cronyism has infested Washington and Wall Street, alike, resulting in the government's desire to protect the wealth instead of the people.
WE SHOULDN'T BE HOSTAGE TO BIG MONEY
An old maxim advises not to put all your eggs in one basket. Yet that is what we've been doing by transferring so much wealth and power to just a few people at the top of the economic pyramid. We're supposed to trust these people because they're the best and brightest in the worlds of manufacturing, technology, banking, communications, and transportation. We were told that for these wonderful folks to innovate they needed less government regulation. The results have been dismal. Who wants to fly now on airlines that don't maintain their planes? Who feels truly comfortable with the food supply when food is consistently contaminated by e. coli and other pathogens? Who likes the higher phone bills and confusion we get with deregulated phone service? How about energy deregulation? Remember Enron? Now we see what's happening with banking deregulation. We shouldn't be held hostage to what Theodore Roosevelt called "the malefactors of great wealth." This article by James Ridgeway is at www.commondreams.org:
Deregulation has been the mantra on both sides of the aisle since the late 1960s. Long gone are Democrats like Michigan’s Phil Hart who, as chair of the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee, held hearings on the concentration of economic power in the United States, and proposed expanded government regulation of everything from the oil and auto industries to pharmaceuticals to professional sports. Hart believed that because wealth and power were concentrated in the hands of such a small number of corporations, the market economy had become no more than a facade. In this context, what would bring about lower prices and greater productivity and innovation was more government intervention and regulation, not less.
Hart got a Senate building named after him, but his warnings about the threat of unbridled corporate power and consolidation went unheeded. Instead, the rush to deregulation began, first in the transportation sector. Efforts begun under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford came to fruition under Jimmy Carter, who hired deregulation guru Alfred E. Kahn to head the Civil Aeronautics Board, the widely loathed agency responsible for regulating the airline industry. Senator Ted Kennedy and his then aide, future Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, embraced deregulation as a consumer issue, and with their support, Kahn quickly worked his way out of a job: The 1978 Airline Deregulation Act dissolved the CAB and removed most regulation of commercial airlines. Carter also signed into law bills deregulating the railroads and the trucking industry.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
March 27, 2008
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
MAYBE WE NEED A PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEM
For the most part, I admire the United States Constitution. The system of checks and balances the Founding Fathers built into the Constitution were supposed to be a safeguard against an oppressive and autocratic government. The Founders couldn't foresee the Bush-Cheney administration. This administration does what it wants to do. It's damn the Constitution and full speed ahead. Bush and Cheney love favorable polls, but polls that don't support their war in Iraq get ignored. This column by Helen Thomas is at www.commondreams.org:
Back in President Lyndon B. Johnson’s worst days when he was grappling with the Vietnam quagmire and raucous anti-war protests at home, he said that in the big decisions about war and peace: "The people should be in on the take offs as well as the landings."
Tell that to President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, who apparently couldn’t care less what Americans think - except every four years at election time.
Cheney made that clear in an intriguing interview with ABC News on his recent Middle East trip. Despite the difficulties surrounding the unprovoked U.S. invasion of Iraq five years ago, Cheney insisted, "It was the right thing to do."
When the interviewer told him that two-thirds of Americans say the war in Iraq is not worth fighting, Cheney scoffed. The administration would not be "blown off course by the fluctuations in public opinion polls," he vowed.
Cheney went on to claim that Abraham Lincoln would never have succeeded in the Civil War if he had paid attention to polls. White House press secretary Dana Perino later indicated that Bush was on the same page.
THE DOMINO EFFECT OF DISASTER
When you look at the subprime mortgage crisis you can see an almost domino-like effect. The dominos started falling with stagnating wages back in the 1970's. Women increasingly went to work because one income wasn't enough anymore. Then along came Bush and Greenspan. Since two incomes weren't even enough to survive, people began to tap into their home equity to make up the difference. Low interest rates and deceptive lending practices eventually led us to where we are now. This article by Don Monkerud is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
The current financial crisis grew out of politicized government policy and a shared belief among business elites to support a laissez-fair, free market, anti-tax economy unhindered by regulations. And ordinary citizens are paying the price of a system rigged to the advantage of those who manipulate capital.
"The foreclosure crisis is a man-made phenomena," said David M. Abromowitz, senior fellow for the Center for American Progress. "It's not just the side effect of a normal market cycle. There was a push to boost home ownership and a pattern of under regulating financial services and support from all kinds of businesses to allow the free market to take over."
The crisis originated in Allen Greenspan's decision to lower Federal interest rates to protect the economy from recession after the Internet stock bubble and 9/11 imperiled the economy. While the Fed kept interest rates low, investors sought higher returns and real estate appeared undervalued.
Although housing costs had risen at a yearly rate of 1.8% over inflation since the Carter presidency, they shot up an average of 7% a year from 2000 to 2004. Easy money under Bush's policy of an "ownership society" increased ownership rates 1.4% and pushed the cost of the median home from $130,000 in 2000 to a peak of $221,900 in 2006.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
March 26, 2008
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE FREE MARKET IS FOR SUCKERS
Guys who ran medicine shows would promise wondrous results from their elixirs. Unfortunately, the elixirs were a sham, and when the buyers discovered they'd been had the medicine shows had moved on. It's that way with the free market. We're told it's this wonderful process that can make us rich. But only a few people get rich, often at the expense of others. The people who advocate the market the most look down on the poor and the working class. We're just not smart or thrifty enough. But when they need a bailout, guess who foots the bill? This column by Ellen Goodman is at www.chron.com:
I grant you that moral hazard is not a myth. But most of the sermons railing against the harm of helping others are directed at the poorer pews.
We don't seem to worry about the moral hazard of, say, protecting a CEO from his failings. Need I remind you that Robert Nardelli got $210 million in severance after he hammered Home Depot? Or that he now resides at the top of Chrysler? What lesson did other chief executives learn from the Citigroup CEO who had $64 billion in market value evaporate on his watch and nevertheless exited with a $68 million package and a $1.7 million pension?
This leads us right into the den of Bear Stearns. Last weekend, while its chief executive was off playing bridge, one of the most aggressive, cowboy firms in the mortgage securities business collapsed. The government brokered a deal with J.P. Morgan Chase to buy the firm and guarantee its loans with your tax dollars.
Bailout is too strong a word for what happened. Teaspooned-out would be better. The Bear Stearns worker bees looking at their life savings and pensions disappear are not flitting off to the beach, although I was charmed to note that the company will have grief counselors at hand. But it is true that the government went to the rescue.
WHAT DO WE BECOME NOW?
It may take decades to undo the damage from the Bush administration. Some of the damage will never be undone. We can't raise the dead. We can't take back the torture. We can't restore the lost limbs or undo the horrible visions of an unnecessary war. Bush has taken us to a dark side, but where do we go when we find ourselves back in the light? If we learn anything, maybe it's that the time of empires and superpowers is past. As JFK said, we all breathe the same air. We all inhabit this small blue marble of a planet. This article by Mark Morford is at www.sfgate.com:
Some say this pain, this fiscal crisis, this enormous instability will last a few years. Some say no way, it will be at least a generation or two before we can right this ship of state again, so deep are the wounds and so insane is our national debt and so violent the damage to our reputation, our identity, our enfeebled infrastructure.
But I'm more with those who say, no, the truth is we will never truly recover, that America's former ranking as Gilded and Irreproachable Empire No. 1 is dead and gone. India and China are dramatically changing the game, peak oil is nigh, fresh water is the new gold, the planet itself is in paroxysm, Mother Nature is quickly revealing her hand — or rather, maybe just that one big, stormy middle finger.
But maybe this is the best news of all. Because the sort of gluttonous empire Bush so disgustingly represented was doomed to failure. The center could not hold. Dubya may not have hastened the apocalypse like the evangelicals desperately prayed he would, but he certainly is hastening the end of the bloviated American ego.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE FREE MARKET IS FOR SUCKERS
Guys who ran medicine shows would promise wondrous results from their elixirs. Unfortunately, the elixirs were a sham, and when the buyers discovered they'd been had the medicine shows had moved on. It's that way with the free market. We're told it's this wonderful process that can make us rich. But only a few people get rich, often at the expense of others. The people who advocate the market the most look down on the poor and the working class. We're just not smart or thrifty enough. But when they need a bailout, guess who foots the bill? This column by Ellen Goodman is at www.chron.com:
I grant you that moral hazard is not a myth. But most of the sermons railing against the harm of helping others are directed at the poorer pews.
We don't seem to worry about the moral hazard of, say, protecting a CEO from his failings. Need I remind you that Robert Nardelli got $210 million in severance after he hammered Home Depot? Or that he now resides at the top of Chrysler? What lesson did other chief executives learn from the Citigroup CEO who had $64 billion in market value evaporate on his watch and nevertheless exited with a $68 million package and a $1.7 million pension?
This leads us right into the den of Bear Stearns. Last weekend, while its chief executive was off playing bridge, one of the most aggressive, cowboy firms in the mortgage securities business collapsed. The government brokered a deal with J.P. Morgan Chase to buy the firm and guarantee its loans with your tax dollars.
Bailout is too strong a word for what happened. Teaspooned-out would be better. The Bear Stearns worker bees looking at their life savings and pensions disappear are not flitting off to the beach, although I was charmed to note that the company will have grief counselors at hand. But it is true that the government went to the rescue.
WHAT DO WE BECOME NOW?
It may take decades to undo the damage from the Bush administration. Some of the damage will never be undone. We can't raise the dead. We can't take back the torture. We can't restore the lost limbs or undo the horrible visions of an unnecessary war. Bush has taken us to a dark side, but where do we go when we find ourselves back in the light? If we learn anything, maybe it's that the time of empires and superpowers is past. As JFK said, we all breathe the same air. We all inhabit this small blue marble of a planet. This article by Mark Morford is at www.sfgate.com:
Some say this pain, this fiscal crisis, this enormous instability will last a few years. Some say no way, it will be at least a generation or two before we can right this ship of state again, so deep are the wounds and so insane is our national debt and so violent the damage to our reputation, our identity, our enfeebled infrastructure.
But I'm more with those who say, no, the truth is we will never truly recover, that America's former ranking as Gilded and Irreproachable Empire No. 1 is dead and gone. India and China are dramatically changing the game, peak oil is nigh, fresh water is the new gold, the planet itself is in paroxysm, Mother Nature is quickly revealing her hand — or rather, maybe just that one big, stormy middle finger.
But maybe this is the best news of all. Because the sort of gluttonous empire Bush so disgustingly represented was doomed to failure. The center could not hold. Dubya may not have hastened the apocalypse like the evangelicals desperately prayed he would, but he certainly is hastening the end of the bloviated American ego.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
March 25, 2008
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
GOVERNMENT A TOOL OF THE RICH
Right-wingers call the very rich the "achievers." We're told you can't "punish the achievers" by making them pay taxes based on their wealth. We're told that the rich already pay most of the income taxes (maybe because they have most of the income). We're told that the business of America is business and all that nasty regulation is an impediment to business. Even though we hear about democracy in this country, we have morphed into a kleptocracy. Most of us, in one form or another, are servants of the very rich. Forget about all those glorious words like "all men are created equal." This article by Charles Sullivan is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Neoconservatives derive much of their political strength from the portrayal of big government as the enemy of the people: a belief that plays only too well in America. Big government is indeed the enemy of the people when it does not serve the people’s interests, or when it betrays them.
Where the neoconservatives and the chicken hawks have been spectacularly successful is in the field of perception management. The super rich—or the ruling clique—constitutes no more than 0.1 percent of the US population. Yet they control the mainstream media, every branch government, the electoral process and the country’s major financial institutions.
Thus, 99.9 percent of the people are being manipulated and cannibalized by a tiny but powerful minority. It is the interests of this powerful minority that are served by government and it is their interests that are defined as the national interest or as national security; and it is hardly benign. Robbing the poor to pay the rich causes irreparable harm to the victim.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
March 23, 2008
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
BUSH: ONLY THE RICH GET GOVERNMENT HELP
As the subprime mortgage crisis washes over the economy, the Bush administration was very prompt to bail out investment firm Bear Stearns. The excuse is that the government can't allow a major bank like Bear Stearns to fail. But if you're the average person whose mortgage costs have gotten out of hand, tough luck, pal. This whole fiasco is a direct result of the anti-regulation ideology of reactionary conservatives, who believe in the "free market." Of course, the "free market" doesn't apply when it's the very rich. This article by By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and Lori Montgomery is at www.washingtonpost.com:
Now that the Federal Reserve has pledged billions of dollars to rescue Wall Street bankers from possible default, lawmakers and regulators are turning their attention to helping average citizens -- from homeowners in danger of foreclosure to people who want to buy a home.
But unlike the Fed's rapid moves last week to stabilize financial markets, the consumer benefits are likely to progress slowly as they face resistance from the Bush administration on some broad issues and from special interests on some narrow ones.
Bush officials are working with lawmakers on proposals that would help new home buyers and small investors by strengthening rules that govern mortgage lending.
THE LIFE EXPECTANCY GAP
It turns out that the United States not only has a gulf between the rich and poor in income, but also in life expectancy. Being poor increases the chances for a shorter life. Right-wingers will undoubtedly spin this that poor people "choose" to live unhealthier lives. But lack of money dictates so many things. It dictates your diet because you buy the food you can afford. It dictates the health care you get or don't get. It dictates the kind of neighborhood where you live. Poor neighborhoods tend to have more crime than more affluent areas, for example. Poor people also tend to live nearer things like toxic waste dumps. This article by Robert Pear is at www.nytimes.com:
WASHINGTON — New government research has found "large and growing" disparities in life expectancy for richer and poorer Americans, paralleling the growth of income inequality in the last two decades.
Life expectancy for the nation as a whole has increased, the researchers said, but affluent people have experienced greater gains, and this, in turn, has caused a widening gap.
One of the researchers, Gopal K. Singh, a demographer at the Department of Health and Human Services , said "the growing inequalities in life expectancy" mirrored trends in infant mortality and in death from heart disease and certain cancers.
The gaps have been increasing despite efforts by the federal government to reduce them. One of the top goals of "Healthy People 2010," an official statement of national health objectives issued in 2000, is to "eliminate health disparities among different segments of the population," including higher- and lower-income groups and people of different racial and ethnic background.
Dr. Singh said last week that federal officials had found "widening socioeconomic inequalities in life expectancy" at birth and at every age level.
He and another researcher, Mohammad Siahpush, a professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, developed an index to measure social and economic conditions in every county, using census data on education, income, poverty, housing and other factors. Counties were then classified into 10 groups of equal population size.
In 1980-82, Dr. Singh said, people in the most affluent group could expect to live 2.8 years longer than people in the most deprived group (75.8 versus 73 years). By 1998-2000, the difference in life expectancy had increased to 4.5 years (79.2 versus 74.7 years), and it continues to grow, he said.
After 20 years, the lowest socioeconomic group lagged further behind the most affluent, Dr. Singh said, noting that "life expectancy was higher for the most affluent in 1980 than for the most deprived group in 2000."
"If you look at the extremes in 2000," Dr. Singh said, "men in the most deprived counties had 10 years’ shorter life expectancy than women in the most affluent counties (71.5 years versus 81.3 years)." The difference between poor black men and affluent white women was more than 14 years (66.9 years vs. 81.1 years).
The Democratic candidates for president, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, have championed legislation to reduce such disparities, as have some Republicans, like Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi.
Peter R. Orszag, director of the Congressional Budget Office , said: "We have heard a lot about growing income inequality. There has been much less attention paid to growing inequality in life expectancy, which is really quite dramatic."
Life expectancy is the average number of years of life remaining for people who have attained a given age.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
BUSH: ONLY THE RICH GET GOVERNMENT HELP
As the subprime mortgage crisis washes over the economy, the Bush administration was very prompt to bail out investment firm Bear Stearns. The excuse is that the government can't allow a major bank like Bear Stearns to fail. But if you're the average person whose mortgage costs have gotten out of hand, tough luck, pal. This whole fiasco is a direct result of the anti-regulation ideology of reactionary conservatives, who believe in the "free market." Of course, the "free market" doesn't apply when it's the very rich. This article by By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and Lori Montgomery is at www.washingtonpost.com:
Now that the Federal Reserve has pledged billions of dollars to rescue Wall Street bankers from possible default, lawmakers and regulators are turning their attention to helping average citizens -- from homeowners in danger of foreclosure to people who want to buy a home.
But unlike the Fed's rapid moves last week to stabilize financial markets, the consumer benefits are likely to progress slowly as they face resistance from the Bush administration on some broad issues and from special interests on some narrow ones.
Bush officials are working with lawmakers on proposals that would help new home buyers and small investors by strengthening rules that govern mortgage lending.
THE LIFE EXPECTANCY GAP
It turns out that the United States not only has a gulf between the rich and poor in income, but also in life expectancy. Being poor increases the chances for a shorter life. Right-wingers will undoubtedly spin this that poor people "choose" to live unhealthier lives. But lack of money dictates so many things. It dictates your diet because you buy the food you can afford. It dictates the health care you get or don't get. It dictates the kind of neighborhood where you live. Poor neighborhoods tend to have more crime than more affluent areas, for example. Poor people also tend to live nearer things like toxic waste dumps. This article by Robert Pear is at www.nytimes.com:
WASHINGTON — New government research has found "large and growing" disparities in life expectancy for richer and poorer Americans, paralleling the growth of income inequality in the last two decades.
Life expectancy for the nation as a whole has increased, the researchers said, but affluent people have experienced greater gains, and this, in turn, has caused a widening gap.
One of the researchers, Gopal K. Singh, a demographer at the Department of Health and Human Services , said "the growing inequalities in life expectancy" mirrored trends in infant mortality and in death from heart disease and certain cancers.
The gaps have been increasing despite efforts by the federal government to reduce them. One of the top goals of "Healthy People 2010," an official statement of national health objectives issued in 2000, is to "eliminate health disparities among different segments of the population," including higher- and lower-income groups and people of different racial and ethnic background.
Dr. Singh said last week that federal officials had found "widening socioeconomic inequalities in life expectancy" at birth and at every age level.
He and another researcher, Mohammad Siahpush, a professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, developed an index to measure social and economic conditions in every county, using census data on education, income, poverty, housing and other factors. Counties were then classified into 10 groups of equal population size.
In 1980-82, Dr. Singh said, people in the most affluent group could expect to live 2.8 years longer than people in the most deprived group (75.8 versus 73 years). By 1998-2000, the difference in life expectancy had increased to 4.5 years (79.2 versus 74.7 years), and it continues to grow, he said.
After 20 years, the lowest socioeconomic group lagged further behind the most affluent, Dr. Singh said, noting that "life expectancy was higher for the most affluent in 1980 than for the most deprived group in 2000."
"If you look at the extremes in 2000," Dr. Singh said, "men in the most deprived counties had 10 years’ shorter life expectancy than women in the most affluent counties (71.5 years versus 81.3 years)." The difference between poor black men and affluent white women was more than 14 years (66.9 years vs. 81.1 years).
The Democratic candidates for president, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, have championed legislation to reduce such disparities, as have some Republicans, like Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi.
Peter R. Orszag, director of the Congressional Budget Office , said: "We have heard a lot about growing income inequality. There has been much less attention paid to growing inequality in life expectancy, which is really quite dramatic."
Life expectancy is the average number of years of life remaining for people who have attained a given age.
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