(or so it seems from the police response)
Check it out!
(OK, in case you haven't heard the actual story, here it is. [p.s. Read the comments, too - they're fracking nuts!])
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Honduras and Obama: Change versus No-Change
The latest crackpot take on Honduras is that Zelaya was "properly impeached" - after the army removed him in his pajamas at gunpoint and declared martial law, of course, suspending all that free speech stuff, etc. (They had learned, I guess, from previous outbreaks of anti-American riots over far lesser offenses.)
But all the serious commentary agrees that the media-christened "interim government" that resulted is not precisely constitutional or democratic. What follows that is mostly hand-wringing and little else.
Meanwhile there have been some interesting connection made. The shocking and of course completely unexpected presence of US-trained thugs among the coup perps are just one - as if the School of the Americas phenom hadn't lurked behind the scenes of most right-wing coups in the Americas since, well, forever.
Another is the degree of influence that Honduran business has a big slimy foot in the Beltway door (in the person of Lanny Davis) and maybe another (in the person of our old friend Otto Reich):
"Otto Reich has [...] been investing his energy during the last couple of years in a campaign against President Zelaya. [...] Reich also co-founded an organization in Washington named Arcadia Foundation together with a Venezuelan, Robert Carmona-Borjas, a lawyer specialized in military law who is linked to the April 2002 coup d'etat in Venezuela, per his own resumé. [...]Since last year, Reich and Carmona-Borjas have been conducting a campaign against President Zelaya, accusing him of corruption and limiting private property rights. Through the Arcadia Foundation, they created a series of video clips that have been shown in different media, attempted to portray Zelaya as a corrupt president who violates the basic rights of the Honduran people.
[...] Carmona-Borjas has traveled frequently to Honduras during the last few months and even held public meetings where the coup against Zelaya was discussed openly. At one encounter where Carmona-Borjas was present, the Honduran Public Defender, Ramón Custodia, who was involved in the coup d'etat, declared to the press that "Coups are a possibility and can occur in any political environment." After the coup took place, Robert Carmona-Borjas appeared at a rally in support of the de facto regime, on July 3rd, and received the honors and applause from the coup leaders who declared him "an important actor" that "helped make possible" the removal from power of President Zelaya and the installment of the dictator Roberto Micheletti as de facto president."
US tentacles run deeper, of course, down to a USAID-funded opposition coalition ...
"The "Democratic Civil Union of Honduras" is composed of organizations including the National Anticorruption Council, the Archbishop of Tegucigalpa, the Honduran Council of Private Enterprise (COHEP), the Council of University Deans, the Workers Federation of Honduras (CTH), the National Convergence Forum, the National Federation of Commerce and Industry of Honduras (FEDECAMARA), the Association of Communication Media (AMC), the Group Peace & Democracy, and the student group Generation for Change."
... and through one of those tangled web-thingies involving ex-Contra czar Negroponte, who's back pulling strings again ...
"In his new role, John Negroponte presently works as Advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Remember, the current US Ambassador to Honduras, Hugo Llorens [who has been working with the coup since it started], has worked closely under Negroponte during the majority of his career. So it would not be a far jump to consider that John Negroponte, expert in crushing leftist movements in Central America, has played a role in the current coup against President Zelaya in Honduras."
... and even to discussions with "our partners" involved in the coup in the days just prior, although naturally as regards "precise knowledge of military actions" of course we had no idea!
Although the Obama Administration did withdraw some (not all) aid, its response to the coup has been perhaps the most telling example of what it's Doctrine of Change actually means: mostly not.
But all the serious commentary agrees that the media-christened "interim government" that resulted is not precisely constitutional or democratic. What follows that is mostly hand-wringing and little else.
Meanwhile there have been some interesting connection made. The shocking and of course completely unexpected presence of US-trained thugs among the coup perps are just one - as if the School of the Americas phenom hadn't lurked behind the scenes of most right-wing coups in the Americas since, well, forever.
Another is the degree of influence that Honduran business has a big slimy foot in the Beltway door (in the person of Lanny Davis) and maybe another (in the person of our old friend Otto Reich):
"Otto Reich has [...] been investing his energy during the last couple of years in a campaign against President Zelaya. [...] Reich also co-founded an organization in Washington named Arcadia Foundation together with a Venezuelan, Robert Carmona-Borjas, a lawyer specialized in military law who is linked to the April 2002 coup d'etat in Venezuela, per his own resumé. [...]Since last year, Reich and Carmona-Borjas have been conducting a campaign against President Zelaya, accusing him of corruption and limiting private property rights. Through the Arcadia Foundation, they created a series of video clips that have been shown in different media, attempted to portray Zelaya as a corrupt president who violates the basic rights of the Honduran people.
[...] Carmona-Borjas has traveled frequently to Honduras during the last few months and even held public meetings where the coup against Zelaya was discussed openly. At one encounter where Carmona-Borjas was present, the Honduran Public Defender, Ramón Custodia, who was involved in the coup d'etat, declared to the press that "Coups are a possibility and can occur in any political environment." After the coup took place, Robert Carmona-Borjas appeared at a rally in support of the de facto regime, on July 3rd, and received the honors and applause from the coup leaders who declared him "an important actor" that "helped make possible" the removal from power of President Zelaya and the installment of the dictator Roberto Micheletti as de facto president."
US tentacles run deeper, of course, down to a USAID-funded opposition coalition ...
"The "Democratic Civil Union of Honduras" is composed of organizations including the National Anticorruption Council, the Archbishop of Tegucigalpa, the Honduran Council of Private Enterprise (COHEP), the Council of University Deans, the Workers Federation of Honduras (CTH), the National Convergence Forum, the National Federation of Commerce and Industry of Honduras (FEDECAMARA), the Association of Communication Media (AMC), the Group Peace & Democracy, and the student group Generation for Change."
... and through one of those tangled web-thingies involving ex-Contra czar Negroponte, who's back pulling strings again ...
"In his new role, John Negroponte presently works as Advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Remember, the current US Ambassador to Honduras, Hugo Llorens [who has been working with the coup since it started], has worked closely under Negroponte during the majority of his career. So it would not be a far jump to consider that John Negroponte, expert in crushing leftist movements in Central America, has played a role in the current coup against President Zelaya in Honduras."
... and even to discussions with "our partners" involved in the coup in the days just prior, although naturally as regards "precise knowledge of military actions" of course we had no idea!
Although the Obama Administration did withdraw some (not all) aid, its response to the coup has been perhaps the most telling example of what it's Doctrine of Change actually means: mostly not.
Monday, June 1, 2009
GM, the new Conrail
Here's a shock: the media are reporting this story all wrong. "GM files for bankruptcy protection," "...a low point in the carmaker's 100-year history...," "... a powerful reminder of how far GM has fallen ...," blah, blah, blah.
The closest they come to the real story is generally on the jump page: "To achieve the lower break-even point, GM will have to shed thousands of employees, several car brands, hundreds of dealerships, health care and pension benefits, and a mountain of debt."
Whoa, rewind there: " ... GM will have to shed thousands of employees, ... health care and pension obligations ..."
Lemme get this straight. The US Government now has controlling interest in GM. The same US Government that has been telling us we have to pump millions of our dollars into GM, et al., because if por exemplo the Big Three go down we could lose jobs big time. The same US Government has also been talking about creating jobs, public works, etc., etc. Now they own GM (mostly), and the jobs go down the toilet anyway? On their watch? On their orders?
Admittedly we're now talking 40,000 jobs instead of 2 million, but the game ain't over yet. We still have more bankruptcy tickets.
This is the wrong kind of restructuring, folks! This is the (now discredited?) IMF all over again, just the opposite of what we need, what we need being what we might call a Social Monetary Fund - that would fund job creation, not "job shedding"; expanded health care that would cover more people, not fewer; likewise pensions.
Instead we seem to be getting, as Greg Palast puts it, "Grand Theft Auto:" nevermind ERISA, nevermind the fact that the pension money isn't theirs to take, and how DO you walk into to the doctor's office and pay with a bankrupt car company's stock?
That's clearly what we should be pissed about. But I'd like to add one more little observation, while we're on the subject (or I am). A little history, just a sort of after dinner mint to tip us right over the edge. It concerns Conrail, pretty well named in retrospect.
You see, this has all happened before. Before 1975 there were a number of old private, for-profit railroad lines running in the Northeastern US. Only they went bankrupt. So the Government bought them, and restructured them, downsized them, "shed" some of their operations and the attendant workers, etc. At the same time, with the same Act, the Government began a program of "regulatory reform" - i.e. deregulation. Several such "reforms" followed, but that's another story.
The long and the short is, by 1980 Conrail turned a profit (NB: as a government run enterprise it became profitable). So the Government took the next logical step - claro. It re-privatized the company, the largest sale of public stock in US history!
Get it? Private enterprise not working - government/taxpayers assume debt, invest billions to rebuild and repair - then hand it back to the profiteers, this time with far fewer regulations, like, for example, secret contracts, etc., etc.
They call this 'socialism'? The smart guys have a better way to describe it: "Socialized risk, privatized profit." What it means is, socialism for the rich, while the rest of us get to take our chances with wild west capitalism.
The closest they come to the real story is generally on the jump page: "To achieve the lower break-even point, GM will have to shed thousands of employees, several car brands, hundreds of dealerships, health care and pension benefits, and a mountain of debt."
Whoa, rewind there: " ... GM will have to shed thousands of employees, ... health care and pension obligations ..."
Lemme get this straight. The US Government now has controlling interest in GM. The same US Government that has been telling us we have to pump millions of our dollars into GM, et al., because if por exemplo the Big Three go down we could lose jobs big time. The same US Government has also been talking about creating jobs, public works, etc., etc. Now they own GM (mostly), and the jobs go down the toilet anyway? On their watch? On their orders?
Admittedly we're now talking 40,000 jobs instead of 2 million, but the game ain't over yet. We still have more bankruptcy tickets.
This is the wrong kind of restructuring, folks! This is the (now discredited?) IMF all over again, just the opposite of what we need, what we need being what we might call a Social Monetary Fund - that would fund job creation, not "job shedding"; expanded health care that would cover more people, not fewer; likewise pensions.
Instead we seem to be getting, as Greg Palast puts it, "Grand Theft Auto:" nevermind ERISA, nevermind the fact that the pension money isn't theirs to take, and how DO you walk into to the doctor's office and pay with a bankrupt car company's stock?
That's clearly what we should be pissed about. But I'd like to add one more little observation, while we're on the subject (or I am). A little history, just a sort of after dinner mint to tip us right over the edge. It concerns Conrail, pretty well named in retrospect.
You see, this has all happened before. Before 1975 there were a number of old private, for-profit railroad lines running in the Northeastern US. Only they went bankrupt. So the Government bought them, and restructured them, downsized them, "shed" some of their operations and the attendant workers, etc. At the same time, with the same Act, the Government began a program of "regulatory reform" - i.e. deregulation. Several such "reforms" followed, but that's another story.
The long and the short is, by 1980 Conrail turned a profit (NB: as a government run enterprise it became profitable). So the Government took the next logical step - claro. It re-privatized the company, the largest sale of public stock in US history!
Get it? Private enterprise not working - government/taxpayers assume debt, invest billions to rebuild and repair - then hand it back to the profiteers, this time with far fewer regulations, like, for example, secret contracts, etc., etc.
They call this 'socialism'? The smart guys have a better way to describe it: "Socialized risk, privatized profit." What it means is, socialism for the rich, while the rest of us get to take our chances with wild west capitalism.
Friday, May 8, 2009
The much-touted 'pace' of bleeding out
Let's say I'm bleeding. Badly. I have about 15 pints of blood in me. I drop a half pint and I don't like that exactly, but it's really no sweat. Then I lose another pint. I feel a little dizzy, starting to get concerned. Then a pint and a half. Weak, feeling sick. Another pint. Really worried now...
Then the 'pace slows'' to half a pint. Do I feel better? Not much. I'm in deep doo-doo, as a certain former President would say. I'm losing less blood than I was before per minute, sure, but my problem is still getting worse. Much worse - fast. Why? You don't have to be a surgeon of any stripe to figure this one out. Because the first drops of blood lost are not the same as the later drops. The more blood I lose, the more precious each drop becomes - the less able I am to weather the loss, not to mention recover from it.
So it is with the slower pace of job loss announced this week for April (only 539,000 losses - nonfarm). The more jobs the economy hemorrhages, the harder it is for laid-off workers to find work - and the harder it is for families to support one another as charities and social services become overwhelmed.
Of course, these are probably not the final figures anyway. (March figures were just "revised upward" to 699,000 people kicked out of work. 650,000 had been predicted.)
And once again, these official figures use "unemployment" as a technical term, which does not mean how many people are out of work. That number would be about twice as much, even centrist economists admit. Official unemployment rates - 8.9 percent this month - do not count the workers who have "become discouraged and stopped looking for work," workers who are failing to find adequate work - maybe a couple days a week when they need a full-time job, and many others. The under-employment rate could be 15-20 percent, according to some.
Of course, even that is not distributed equally. (What is?) For some age groups of black men, for example, the employment rate is barely about 50 percent now - for others, less than 15 percent.
But the economy "may be finally starting to find its footing," writes Brian Blackstone in the Wall Street Journal - even though " a good deal of the improvement came from government hiring in advance of next year's Census." Now all we have to do is convince the government to hire the 5.7 million people who hav been thrown out of work since December 2007 to count every living thing on the planet Earth ... hmmm ...
Then the 'pace slows'' to half a pint. Do I feel better? Not much. I'm in deep doo-doo, as a certain former President would say. I'm losing less blood than I was before per minute, sure, but my problem is still getting worse. Much worse - fast. Why? You don't have to be a surgeon of any stripe to figure this one out. Because the first drops of blood lost are not the same as the later drops. The more blood I lose, the more precious each drop becomes - the less able I am to weather the loss, not to mention recover from it.
So it is with the slower pace of job loss announced this week for April (only 539,000 losses - nonfarm). The more jobs the economy hemorrhages, the harder it is for laid-off workers to find work - and the harder it is for families to support one another as charities and social services become overwhelmed.
Of course, these are probably not the final figures anyway. (March figures were just "revised upward" to 699,000 people kicked out of work. 650,000 had been predicted.)
And once again, these official figures use "unemployment" as a technical term, which does not mean how many people are out of work. That number would be about twice as much, even centrist economists admit. Official unemployment rates - 8.9 percent this month - do not count the workers who have "become discouraged and stopped looking for work," workers who are failing to find adequate work - maybe a couple days a week when they need a full-time job, and many others. The under-employment rate could be 15-20 percent, according to some.
Of course, even that is not distributed equally. (What is?) For some age groups of black men, for example, the employment rate is barely about 50 percent now - for others, less than 15 percent.
But the economy "may be finally starting to find its footing," writes Brian Blackstone in the Wall Street Journal - even though " a good deal of the improvement came from government hiring in advance of next year's Census." Now all we have to do is convince the government to hire the 5.7 million people who hav been thrown out of work since December 2007 to count every living thing on the planet Earth ... hmmm ...
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Capitalist swine manure lagoons
So now the swine flu outbreak may have an interesting link to "manure lagoons" at gigantic pig farms in Mexico on land stolen from campesinos and run by US agribusiness. There's a shocker! A big international corporation like Smithfield Farms involved in a catastrophe of Bhopal proportion?
Oh, yeah. Bhopal was a catastrophe caused by a big international corporation. So was this whole "recession". (Well, not by one.)
Smithfield Farms, by the way, has been on labor's naughty list for several years, too. The company has even become the Baby Face Nelson of union-busting, poster boy of the need for the Employee Free Choice Act:
" ...At a Smithfield Farms plant in North Carolina, the company actually formed its own police force, in cahoots with the local sheriff, to scare away the union with guns. The Wagner Act was supposed to end that kind of corporate criminality more than 70 years ago, but it is still happening today. ..."
And speaking of the recession, how does Smithfield Farms coming out smelling before this swine flu thing? (You can probably guess the apropriate simile from the first line of this post.)
" ...Workers soon to be let go from Farmland Foods have learned there will be no severance money to go with them.
Smithfield Farms Inc. announced in February it was closing the New Riegel plant April 17, along with five other plants around the country in a reorganization effort.
"...Some of [the workers] have been there for more than 30 years. They came to us two months ago and told us they were going to close the facility as well as four or five other plants owned by Smithfield.
"...At this point, he said they are not really bargaining with Smithfield, they are begging.
"...They [Smithfield] agree that they are making money ... They just won't pay a severance package. It's really a slap in the face to the people who made their livelihood there for better than 30 years."
Nice, huh?
Oh, yeah. Bhopal was a catastrophe caused by a big international corporation. So was this whole "recession". (Well, not by one.)
Smithfield Farms, by the way, has been on labor's naughty list for several years, too. The company has even become the Baby Face Nelson of union-busting, poster boy of the need for the Employee Free Choice Act:
" ...At a Smithfield Farms plant in North Carolina, the company actually formed its own police force, in cahoots with the local sheriff, to scare away the union with guns. The Wagner Act was supposed to end that kind of corporate criminality more than 70 years ago, but it is still happening today. ..."
And speaking of the recession, how does Smithfield Farms coming out smelling before this swine flu thing? (You can probably guess the apropriate simile from the first line of this post.)
" ...Workers soon to be let go from Farmland Foods have learned there will be no severance money to go with them.
Smithfield Farms Inc. announced in February it was closing the New Riegel plant April 17, along with five other plants around the country in a reorganization effort.
"...Some of [the workers] have been there for more than 30 years. They came to us two months ago and told us they were going to close the facility as well as four or five other plants owned by Smithfield.
"...At this point, he said they are not really bargaining with Smithfield, they are begging.
"...They [Smithfield] agree that they are making money ... They just won't pay a severance package. It's really a slap in the face to the people who made their livelihood there for better than 30 years."
Nice, huh?
Thursday, April 16, 2009
More on "tea parties"
Yes, it's a pun.
Sorry, my basic critique of this "tax day tea party" embarrassment is below, but I just couldn't resist these -er- insightful comments from the Illinois "tea party" site, which I think show their true colors:
"I stand for preserving the American way. I am against this socialistic regime the uninformed have elected. I’ll be there with others!"
"[...] liberals are projecting a very rabid socialist agenda."
And when one lone voice chimed in to criticize the war, "Uh, [...] 'failed Iraq war'? Did you miss something? Like the success in Iraq? Democracy? Come on down to the tea party, be sure to wear your Obama slobbering t-shirt so we know who you are … maybe by April 15 you’ll come to your senses when you see how (N)Obama is rapidly destroying our country."
"I will be there will bells on. I am so tired of what Obama is doing to this country! We need to take back our country and renew our pride in being a true American."
"I am in P-Town also Carol and Bobbie, and if we can get an April 15th Tax Tea Party here in the land of Obamunism Central, I can be there. Of course, I also view April 15th as National Buy A Gun Day, so it might have to happen after Pekin Gun Store opens."
"Operation Support Our Troops organization will be there and is requesting perhaps a donation to bring since their inventory is low for the troops. Come with American Flags and signs - enough is enough! Get our country back! Help us with this 2009 American Revolution - stand strong, stand united and let us make history!"
"No more government funding of a 'bridge to nowhere', no more providing non-essential medical care for illegals, no more research grants 'to study the Kentucky toad' (see Stimulus bill), or public funding of 'artists', No more public financing of insurance for those that CHOOSE to live in high casualty risk areas, like beach front property."
I want to be clear that criticism or anger directed at Obama is not necessarily racist - there's a lot to gripe about, including how the economy is being managed and on whose behalf - but in this context of jingoistic "Ameristan" comments emphasizing the middle name "Hussein" and so on, I think there is good reason to see racism at work.
That's not all that's wrong, of course. Take the photo of a Texas woman proclaiming, "I'm a proud right-wing extremist." Or the anti-welfare "distribute my work ethic" or "free markets not free loaders".
This could go on all day, but maybe in closing we can pause to ponder the sly, "Don't tax me, bro."
Sorry, my basic critique of this "tax day tea party" embarrassment is below, but I just couldn't resist these -er- insightful comments from the Illinois "tea party" site, which I think show their true colors:
"I stand for preserving the American way. I am against this socialistic regime the uninformed have elected. I’ll be there with others!"
"[...] liberals are projecting a very rabid socialist agenda."
And when one lone voice chimed in to criticize the war, "Uh, [...] 'failed Iraq war'? Did you miss something? Like the success in Iraq? Democracy? Come on down to the tea party, be sure to wear your Obama slobbering t-shirt so we know who you are … maybe by April 15 you’ll come to your senses when you see how (N)Obama is rapidly destroying our country."
"I will be there will bells on. I am so tired of what Obama is doing to this country! We need to take back our country and renew our pride in being a true American."
"I am in P-Town also Carol and Bobbie, and if we can get an April 15th Tax Tea Party here in the land of Obamunism Central, I can be there. Of course, I also view April 15th as National Buy A Gun Day, so it might have to happen after Pekin Gun Store opens."
"Operation Support Our Troops organization will be there and is requesting perhaps a donation to bring since their inventory is low for the troops. Come with American Flags and signs - enough is enough! Get our country back! Help us with this 2009 American Revolution - stand strong, stand united and let us make history!"
"No more government funding of a 'bridge to nowhere', no more providing non-essential medical care for illegals, no more research grants 'to study the Kentucky toad' (see Stimulus bill), or public funding of 'artists', No more public financing of insurance for those that CHOOSE to live in high casualty risk areas, like beach front property."
I want to be clear that criticism or anger directed at Obama is not necessarily racist - there's a lot to gripe about, including how the economy is being managed and on whose behalf - but in this context of jingoistic "Ameristan" comments emphasizing the middle name "Hussein" and so on, I think there is good reason to see racism at work.
That's not all that's wrong, of course. Take the photo of a Texas woman proclaiming, "I'm a proud right-wing extremist." Or the anti-welfare "distribute my work ethic" or "free markets not free loaders".
This could go on all day, but maybe in closing we can pause to ponder the sly, "Don't tax me, bro."
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Big little banks
Today's New York Times has a worried article about the government's assessments of the nation's biggest banks, and how lower assessments might send investors packing from the "smaller" ones. Es posible.
But the scale is all wrong for this discussion, or at least it's not to our scale for most of us. The big little banks or the big big banks, any and all of them are ready, willing and able to sack our communities like a thirsty horde of Vikings.
What would help us is to break them all up into local or regional banks, reorganized along cooperative lines - one member-depositor, one vote - and a mission to support local sustainable economies.
But the scale is all wrong for this discussion, or at least it's not to our scale for most of us. The big little banks or the big big banks, any and all of them are ready, willing and able to sack our communities like a thirsty horde of Vikings.
What would help us is to break them all up into local or regional banks, reorganized along cooperative lines - one member-depositor, one vote - and a mission to support local sustainable economies.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Missing the Boat
Seems the Libertarian nutjobs are coming out of the woodwork, holding little "tea parties" here and there. But these so-called tea parties have just about one and a half things in common with the original in Boston, besides the name, that is.
First, they are disguised. In 1773 the famous tea party-istas were disguised as Native Americans. In 2009 the cheap knock-offs are disguised as patriots who are standing up for the common people.
In 1773 of course the issue was "taxation without representation". The British colonies in North America had no elected representation in the British Parliament, though some of them did have influence via money. The American Revolution was a mixed bag, led by wealthy landowners - most involved in slavery - and by common craftsmen and idealists who believed in Thomas Paine's quite radical "Rights of Man."
These 21st century tea-party-goers have the principle just about reversed. They reject the basic principle established in the English wars of parliament versus king, carried on in the American rebellion, that the power to tax derives directly from the democratic process, and - I'd argue - that its primary purpose is to "promote the general welfare."
So, taxes would be the second thing this year's tea parties have in common with the 1773 party, except that it's similar in name only. That's why I say one and a half things in commmon.
There is certainly plenty of wastage of tax money, always has been. Business-obsessed and war-mongering public officials put our tax money to the worst possible uses: aggressive wars, subsidies to the biggest and most destructive corporations, tax breaks to the rich, deregulating industry, privatizing public services (yes, these activities cost tax money).
On the other hand, taxes pay for schools, libraries, streets, sanitation (in many places), public health, fire departments, adult education programs, and other things that clearly "promote the general welfare". Social security, disability, and child and family welfare programs are excellent uses of tax money. We could use twice as many teachers, and a lot more expenditure in most of these neglected areas. Better levees and a half-way decent evacuation plan might have saved half a million poor people's homes in 2005. Clearly a comprehensive response after the fact was missing, sidelined to the more pressing objectives of the richest 1 percent of our population.
So clearly taxes are not the problem, per se. The problem is a two-parter: how we spend taxes, and how we collect tax. Taxes are not too high, in fact; they are too low - on the rich. Sure, they're too high on most of us - sales taxes, property taxes, gas taxes, all regressive (they hit you harder, the lower your income). This is not a wonkish detail; it's the very heart of the issue. Libertarians (emphasis on the capital 'L') who gloss over this crucial reality are either clueless or faking, at the deepest level.
A lot of coded racism plays into this nowadays, too: anti-welfare "queen" ideology a la Ronnie "Rayguns" Reagan, etc. On a very important institutional level this is a familiar "divide and conquer" politics of the sort that allowed the English to conquer the Native Americans, India, and so on, and still keeps the American people under the thumb of its wealthy. It distracts our righteous popular anger over the repeated bail-outs of the rich and deepening neglect of most of us - away from the authentic popular pressure that is striving heroically in the opposite direction: toward a "people's bailout" and what some are calling equity.
First, they are disguised. In 1773 the famous tea party-istas were disguised as Native Americans. In 2009 the cheap knock-offs are disguised as patriots who are standing up for the common people.
In 1773 of course the issue was "taxation without representation". The British colonies in North America had no elected representation in the British Parliament, though some of them did have influence via money. The American Revolution was a mixed bag, led by wealthy landowners - most involved in slavery - and by common craftsmen and idealists who believed in Thomas Paine's quite radical "Rights of Man."
These 21st century tea-party-goers have the principle just about reversed. They reject the basic principle established in the English wars of parliament versus king, carried on in the American rebellion, that the power to tax derives directly from the democratic process, and - I'd argue - that its primary purpose is to "promote the general welfare."
So, taxes would be the second thing this year's tea parties have in common with the 1773 party, except that it's similar in name only. That's why I say one and a half things in commmon.
There is certainly plenty of wastage of tax money, always has been. Business-obsessed and war-mongering public officials put our tax money to the worst possible uses: aggressive wars, subsidies to the biggest and most destructive corporations, tax breaks to the rich, deregulating industry, privatizing public services (yes, these activities cost tax money).
On the other hand, taxes pay for schools, libraries, streets, sanitation (in many places), public health, fire departments, adult education programs, and other things that clearly "promote the general welfare". Social security, disability, and child and family welfare programs are excellent uses of tax money. We could use twice as many teachers, and a lot more expenditure in most of these neglected areas. Better levees and a half-way decent evacuation plan might have saved half a million poor people's homes in 2005. Clearly a comprehensive response after the fact was missing, sidelined to the more pressing objectives of the richest 1 percent of our population.
So clearly taxes are not the problem, per se. The problem is a two-parter: how we spend taxes, and how we collect tax. Taxes are not too high, in fact; they are too low - on the rich. Sure, they're too high on most of us - sales taxes, property taxes, gas taxes, all regressive (they hit you harder, the lower your income). This is not a wonkish detail; it's the very heart of the issue. Libertarians (emphasis on the capital 'L') who gloss over this crucial reality are either clueless or faking, at the deepest level.
A lot of coded racism plays into this nowadays, too: anti-welfare "queen" ideology a la Ronnie "Rayguns" Reagan, etc. On a very important institutional level this is a familiar "divide and conquer" politics of the sort that allowed the English to conquer the Native Americans, India, and so on, and still keeps the American people under the thumb of its wealthy. It distracts our righteous popular anger over the repeated bail-outs of the rich and deepening neglect of most of us - away from the authentic popular pressure that is striving heroically in the opposite direction: toward a "people's bailout" and what some are calling equity.
Monday, April 6, 2009
The People's Potluck
Last summer a solid union friend of mine named Gene Vanderport got together some people he knew to talk about ways that communities could address the economic crisis.
This was well before the financial sector locked up and job losses really spiked in October and November. Of course the economists-that-be now admit that the recession started last year (at least), but at that time they had not admitted anything. What Paul Krugman tells us is a "liquidity crisis" some of us - including Gene's members - were already experiencing as a big fat "cash flow" problem, a housing problem, a job problem, a wages and benefits and paying-the-bills sort of problem. Of course it means the same thing.
The idea hatched at Gene's house was to hold a "People's Thanksgiving" just before the holiday of a similar name, and bring together activists and service providers from across the community with people who need food and housing and jobs, and put our heads together and see how we could help one another. The assumption was that we cannot rely on the government, certainly not on capitalism, to rescue our communities.
It was prescient.
The first potluck supper, which actually happened the weekend after Thanksgiving, turned into regularly monthly get-togethers - and spun off working subgroups focused on various aspects of the problem, and built ties to other local movements with potential for what my old hippy editor at the Buffalo Alternative Press used to call synergy: housing, food, jobs, union rights, health care, veterans' benefits and war, urban justice and racism, immigration and migrant farm work in the area.
One group is planning community gardens and teach-ins on container gardening, cooking on a low budget, canning what you grow, working with food pantries, etc. The Catholic Worker in town is involved and already fighting evictions in a nearby town, presenting ideas on how to put "stimulus money" to good use. A couple groups are collaborating on compiling a directory of services, discussing ways to fill the void left by our town's sudden loss of its Urban League, which had provided so many services and referrals.
Homeless participants are taking an active and integral role. Felons are telling their stories. Unionists and Greens and tenants' union advocates are working together, talking about nationalizing banks, collecting clothes for abused women and children, eating together and talking and sharing ideas on a "People's Bailout" or "Social Monetary Fund" and demands to make on elected officials as well as direct actions and organizing for mutual aid.
At first we talked about building towards a "Central Illinois Social Forum" in May. Now that event promises to bring in such new energy, so many exciting new ideas and connections, such excellent new community, that it will ikely be just the beginning.
I recommend the model. Highly.
This was well before the financial sector locked up and job losses really spiked in October and November. Of course the economists-that-be now admit that the recession started last year (at least), but at that time they had not admitted anything. What Paul Krugman tells us is a "liquidity crisis" some of us - including Gene's members - were already experiencing as a big fat "cash flow" problem, a housing problem, a job problem, a wages and benefits and paying-the-bills sort of problem. Of course it means the same thing.
The idea hatched at Gene's house was to hold a "People's Thanksgiving" just before the holiday of a similar name, and bring together activists and service providers from across the community with people who need food and housing and jobs, and put our heads together and see how we could help one another. The assumption was that we cannot rely on the government, certainly not on capitalism, to rescue our communities.
It was prescient.
The first potluck supper, which actually happened the weekend after Thanksgiving, turned into regularly monthly get-togethers - and spun off working subgroups focused on various aspects of the problem, and built ties to other local movements with potential for what my old hippy editor at the Buffalo Alternative Press used to call synergy: housing, food, jobs, union rights, health care, veterans' benefits and war, urban justice and racism, immigration and migrant farm work in the area.
One group is planning community gardens and teach-ins on container gardening, cooking on a low budget, canning what you grow, working with food pantries, etc. The Catholic Worker in town is involved and already fighting evictions in a nearby town, presenting ideas on how to put "stimulus money" to good use. A couple groups are collaborating on compiling a directory of services, discussing ways to fill the void left by our town's sudden loss of its Urban League, which had provided so many services and referrals.
Homeless participants are taking an active and integral role. Felons are telling their stories. Unionists and Greens and tenants' union advocates are working together, talking about nationalizing banks, collecting clothes for abused women and children, eating together and talking and sharing ideas on a "People's Bailout" or "Social Monetary Fund" and demands to make on elected officials as well as direct actions and organizing for mutual aid.
At first we talked about building towards a "Central Illinois Social Forum" in May. Now that event promises to bring in such new energy, so many exciting new ideas and connections, such excellent new community, that it will ikely be just the beginning.
I recommend the model. Highly.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Outrage is not enough!
Maybe you've heard the phrase, "Outrage is all the rage," describing how ticked off the American people are about the toxic economy and our feckless government. Quite right, too. Of course, we aren't pissed off enough until we're pissed off enough to do something about it.
It's not bad enough that the bastards who've been lowering wages and shipping jobs overseas for 30 years, all the time claiming - with economists as Greek chorus - that big business "knows best" so we should just lie back and let them run things, are the ones we're bailing out now.
It's not bad enough that they've stolen billions from us over the years by underpaying us for our work, and then shifting the tax burden to ordinary working folks away from the richest people in the frakking world, and now they come to us for help!
No, it's not bad enough that the chief instrument of our international economic policy (besides the military), the International Monetary Fund, has been extorting "reforms" in other countries when their economies are in trouble that our economic managers refuse to accept here - like nationalizing the banks. (By the way, most of the usual IMF demands - like privatization and cutting social services - are about the opposite of what just about any country needs.)
But the bloodsuckers like AIG used our money to give millions in bonuses? Let us get our hands on them! Or at the very least on the money.
On "Talk of the Nation" invited pundit Marc Ambinder tells us Congress allowed the AIG bonuses because of some "sense of the sanctity of contracts"- which the host rightly points out wasn't their take on UAW contracts.
But to ask whether it's "fair" to tax the money back, as another pundit on NPR did, that's not even funny. Is it "fair" that we - and future generations burdened by the debt - should pay for this monstrous ripoff? Absolutely not.
And to say, as NPR's select pundits did last night, that "the average American" just "doesn't understand" the complexities involved! It's enough to start riots, or ought to be.
But neither taxing, nor rioting is going to be enough. And in the long run, neither is nationalizing the banks and other companies. Yes, we should tax them, and yes, we should riot. And yes, we should nationalize them - and then clean the bums out, and then reorganize them completely: break them up, divide the assets among not just a half-dozen regions of the country but dozens of smaller, not-for-profit co-ops - and re-regulate (properly this time), and take the shackles off the credit unions, let them grow and compete with the for-profit entities, let them flourish unencumbered by the monopolizing lobbyist-inspired political thumb of corporate banking.
It's a decent formula for the rest of the economy, too: bailouts are, or should be, in-roads to government buyouts, yes, takeovers, housecleaning and reorganization on populist social principles: massive break-ups and reorganizations into worker-owned co-operative businesses in every sector of the economy impacted by the current cancer.
Because the problem isn't just mismanagement. It isn't just deregulation. The banks and mortgage companies, credit card companies, car loan financing schemers, etc., lent to everyone who could realistically afford their rates. Then they lent to a whole class of people who couldn't really afford the usury, and the rest is history why? Greed? No, not even close. Greed was there, of course. But the competitive drive to maximize profits, and control markets, demanded it. They had to expand or lose.
And they will have to again, even if the private clowns who run them now are replaced by the government clowns who deregulated them in the first place, and their newer apprentices - no, nationalization is far from enough. The reorganization we require must be carried out on a completely different agenda than the one our government has been working off, a people's agenda. A Social Monetary Fund agenda, if you ask me.
That's the short term solution at least.
It's not bad enough that the bastards who've been lowering wages and shipping jobs overseas for 30 years, all the time claiming - with economists as Greek chorus - that big business "knows best" so we should just lie back and let them run things, are the ones we're bailing out now.
It's not bad enough that they've stolen billions from us over the years by underpaying us for our work, and then shifting the tax burden to ordinary working folks away from the richest people in the frakking world, and now they come to us for help!
No, it's not bad enough that the chief instrument of our international economic policy (besides the military), the International Monetary Fund, has been extorting "reforms" in other countries when their economies are in trouble that our economic managers refuse to accept here - like nationalizing the banks. (By the way, most of the usual IMF demands - like privatization and cutting social services - are about the opposite of what just about any country needs.)
But the bloodsuckers like AIG used our money to give millions in bonuses? Let us get our hands on them! Or at the very least on the money.
On "Talk of the Nation" invited pundit Marc Ambinder tells us Congress allowed the AIG bonuses because of some "sense of the sanctity of contracts"- which the host rightly points out wasn't their take on UAW contracts.
But to ask whether it's "fair" to tax the money back, as another pundit on NPR did, that's not even funny. Is it "fair" that we - and future generations burdened by the debt - should pay for this monstrous ripoff? Absolutely not.
And to say, as NPR's select pundits did last night, that "the average American" just "doesn't understand" the complexities involved! It's enough to start riots, or ought to be.
But neither taxing, nor rioting is going to be enough. And in the long run, neither is nationalizing the banks and other companies. Yes, we should tax them, and yes, we should riot. And yes, we should nationalize them - and then clean the bums out, and then reorganize them completely: break them up, divide the assets among not just a half-dozen regions of the country but dozens of smaller, not-for-profit co-ops - and re-regulate (properly this time), and take the shackles off the credit unions, let them grow and compete with the for-profit entities, let them flourish unencumbered by the monopolizing lobbyist-inspired political thumb of corporate banking.
It's a decent formula for the rest of the economy, too: bailouts are, or should be, in-roads to government buyouts, yes, takeovers, housecleaning and reorganization on populist social principles: massive break-ups and reorganizations into worker-owned co-operative businesses in every sector of the economy impacted by the current cancer.
Because the problem isn't just mismanagement. It isn't just deregulation. The banks and mortgage companies, credit card companies, car loan financing schemers, etc., lent to everyone who could realistically afford their rates. Then they lent to a whole class of people who couldn't really afford the usury, and the rest is history why? Greed? No, not even close. Greed was there, of course. But the competitive drive to maximize profits, and control markets, demanded it. They had to expand or lose.
And they will have to again, even if the private clowns who run them now are replaced by the government clowns who deregulated them in the first place, and their newer apprentices - no, nationalization is far from enough. The reorganization we require must be carried out on a completely different agenda than the one our government has been working off, a people's agenda. A Social Monetary Fund agenda, if you ask me.
That's the short term solution at least.
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