We interrupt the planned blogging with a question ...
What part of "buy low, sell high" does the Obama Administration not understand? An NPR "Morning Edition" announcer mused about White House cheering at the sale of the U.S. government's 8% stake in Chrysler. This is at a loss of $1.3 billion; or about 10%.
What are they celebrating?
If you'll recall, in March 2009 Obama announced that the U.S. government bought an 8% stake in Chrysler (in large, publicly held corporations a 5% stake usually gets you a seat on the board) as part of a deal involving the United Auto Workers, Canada, an "alliance" with Fiat, and writeoffs on the part of Chrysler creditors.
Now, Obama is selling that stake at a loss to Fiat — which already has plenty to lose if it walks away. What are "We, the People" getting for all of this subsidizing of U.S. and foreign megacorporations? Zip, zilch, zero, nada.
We're losing $1.3 billion. Rest assured that some politician will make up that by eliminating nutrition for infants or some such.
If this is such a great deal, why aren't the federal government of Canada and the Province of Ontario selling their combined 2% stake, acquired in 2009 as part of the same deal?
“We’ve never believed the government of Canada should be in the automotive business,” said Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty at a news conference in Toronto. “But we have to look out for good value for Canadian taxpayers.”
Flaherty is a Tory, a cabinet member in a majority Progressive Conservative government. This is no flaming pinko member of the New Democratic Party, the socialist party that overtook the Liberals in the last election.
Why doesn't Obama care about "good value" for U.S. taxpayers?
Hello! The unemployment rate just went up this past month for the second month in a row. This is a smokescreen for predicted bad economic news. It's just as fake as "change you can believe in."
Here's the real Obama motto: soft, subsidized, all-expenses-paid socialism for corporations and the wealthy; hard-scrabble, you're-on-your-own capitalism for the rest of us.
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Friday, June 03, 2011
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
All good lefties should dump the Democratic Party
Yes, you read that right. I mean it. Presidential timidity in the face of an arrogant plutocracy convinces me that the only way to bring "change you can believe in" to capitalism is to destroy it. The Grand Old Party, not the Democratic Party, is the last best hope to achieve that goal, given that revolution has never happened in the United States and never will.
To be sure, Obama had many golden opportunities to show he meant his promises.
One handed to him on a silver platter was the collapse of the auto industry, the very emblem of U.S. capitalism's so-called "American Way." He was effectively asked to nationalize the industry -- everything but Ford. Indeed, the entire industry had behaved no better than a heroin dealer, addicting Americans to the car, its pollution, the garbage-producing waste of "planned obsolescence" and dependence on foreign oil.
In the name of capitalism, Obama decided to make government a silent partner.
Next came the much awaited health care reform. Yet universal health care was never even the avowed goal of Obama. Sure enough, the mafia of the American Medical Association, Big Pharmas and Slick Insurance -- everybody who wants to get their hands in the pockets of healthy and wealthy people in the name of "health care" -- made Swiss cheese of Obama's proposals.
They essentially won a continuation of the status quo, or even its worsening, for Citizen Average -- that's you and me.
Financial reform was the obvious next move, right? Anyone who watched policy from Reagan-era deregulation to the repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999, knows that what happened in 2008 was a planned heist by the titans of the financial industry. So far, they've resisted any significant change.
Then let's not forget never ending, always expanding war and Guantanamo. All of which Obama vowed to end.
Now I can hear Obama and his surrogates whining that none of this is this administration's fault and change just can't be done because of the present political circumstances. That's precisely my point.
The Democratic Party saved capitalism in the 1930s and saved it again and again, all the way to 2009 and beyond. Even the union hacks have woken up and are withholding their money at long last.
The Democrats are just not up to do the job. Next post: why the GOP is.
To be sure, Obama had many golden opportunities to show he meant his promises.
One handed to him on a silver platter was the collapse of the auto industry, the very emblem of U.S. capitalism's so-called "American Way." He was effectively asked to nationalize the industry -- everything but Ford. Indeed, the entire industry had behaved no better than a heroin dealer, addicting Americans to the car, its pollution, the garbage-producing waste of "planned obsolescence" and dependence on foreign oil.
In the name of capitalism, Obama decided to make government a silent partner.
Next came the much awaited health care reform. Yet universal health care was never even the avowed goal of Obama. Sure enough, the mafia of the American Medical Association, Big Pharmas and Slick Insurance -- everybody who wants to get their hands in the pockets of healthy and wealthy people in the name of "health care" -- made Swiss cheese of Obama's proposals.
They essentially won a continuation of the status quo, or even its worsening, for Citizen Average -- that's you and me.
Financial reform was the obvious next move, right? Anyone who watched policy from Reagan-era deregulation to the repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999, knows that what happened in 2008 was a planned heist by the titans of the financial industry. So far, they've resisted any significant change.
Then let's not forget never ending, always expanding war and Guantanamo. All of which Obama vowed to end.
Now I can hear Obama and his surrogates whining that none of this is this administration's fault and change just can't be done because of the present political circumstances. That's precisely my point.
The Democratic Party saved capitalism in the 1930s and saved it again and again, all the way to 2009 and beyond. Even the union hacks have woken up and are withholding their money at long last.
The Democrats are just not up to do the job. Next post: why the GOP is.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Friendship-making epigram: "I voted for Obama and all I got was an American president like any other"
The beauty of the statement is its detachment. The author, my friend K, said he'd spent most elections voting for anyone but the two main parties' candidates: Nader, etc. Then he got drawn in by Obama.
But by now he's as disillusioned as so many of us (most of us?) who voted for change. And what did we get?
We didn't get, as some White House blowhard said recently, "universal health care." Far from it! We got, at most, a health insurance reform bill that the insurance lobby is busy bringing to a death of a thousand papercuts. In the end, nothing.
We didn't get finance reform. As my friend said, we paid the bank robbers and then let them write the rules from the government. Or don't you know that the Obama Administration's economic policy-making machine is a fully owned subsidiary of Goldman, Sachs?
And we surely didn't get an end to war, torture and illegal detention without trial in Guantanamo.
"Well," my friend said of the reforms, "you can't blame Obama. He did what he could and Congress stopped him."
That's what Obama wants you to think in November 2012. In reality, Obama went to the Republicans and the lobbyists hat in hand giving the candy store away from the get go. He wrestled with himself so much, that the disloyal opposition just had to sit back and watch with amusement. He fooled us into thinking he had more spine than Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid. As if.
As to war, my friend agreed, "Obama could have ended that."
So here comes Obama, finally asserting something that has been bipartisan U.S. policy forever and a day: Israel should return to pre-1967 borders. Why couldn't he have done the same with health and finance reform and Guantanamo and war?
Because he's not about change. He's an American president just like all the others.
But by now he's as disillusioned as so many of us (most of us?) who voted for change. And what did we get?
We didn't get, as some White House blowhard said recently, "universal health care." Far from it! We got, at most, a health insurance reform bill that the insurance lobby is busy bringing to a death of a thousand papercuts. In the end, nothing.
We didn't get finance reform. As my friend said, we paid the bank robbers and then let them write the rules from the government. Or don't you know that the Obama Administration's economic policy-making machine is a fully owned subsidiary of Goldman, Sachs?
And we surely didn't get an end to war, torture and illegal detention without trial in Guantanamo.
"Well," my friend said of the reforms, "you can't blame Obama. He did what he could and Congress stopped him."
That's what Obama wants you to think in November 2012. In reality, Obama went to the Republicans and the lobbyists hat in hand giving the candy store away from the get go. He wrestled with himself so much, that the disloyal opposition just had to sit back and watch with amusement. He fooled us into thinking he had more spine than Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid. As if.
As to war, my friend agreed, "Obama could have ended that."
So here comes Obama, finally asserting something that has been bipartisan U.S. policy forever and a day: Israel should return to pre-1967 borders. Why couldn't he have done the same with health and finance reform and Guantanamo and war?
Because he's not about change. He's an American president just like all the others.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Why I Voted Republican Yesterday
The words "I voted Republican" sputter from my fingers with trepidation. I killed my mother. I lost my virginity. I gave away my dog. That's how it feels. But I was driven to it by the Democrats' penchant for disaster when mere setbacks can be had -- and I feel I'm not alone. Watch out, Barack Obama, I may do it again in 2012.
The election I voted in was insignificant. In my Democratic-dominated city, there was a special election to fill a seat on the council and I was sick of voting for the same bunch of corrupt, unimaginative bumblers. "My" candidate lost, anyway.
Yet beware: Obama campaign analysts should see in my naughty yet harmless municipal voting the butterfly's wings aflutter that could set in motion an electoral tsunami in 2012.
I didn't expect too much better from the set of cronies who run City Hall. But I had developed dreams about Obama, with his seductive "yes we can" and his smooth palaver about "change you can believe in." Yet after a health bill without a public option, financial "reform" written in bank boardrooms, and the largest single-year set of cuts in federal spending in history along with the continuation of historic tax cuts, I feel like the voter who's woken up alone in a strange bedroom the morning after election night.
I won't say that Obama is corrupt -- although he got to the Oval Office with a suspiciously large amount of Wall Street money. But his White House could be mistaken for functioning unimaginatively, sometimes to the point that one thinks it's Bush still in charge. As for bumblers, what else should I call an administration that keeps bargaining against itself?
Even the unions, which are not the havens of the most saintly people ever known, have woken up. The International Association of Fire Fighters announced it was cutting off the campaign money spigot for Democrats given their failure to respond to the wave of labor policy rollbacks Republicans are pushing across the nation.
Hispanics and Asians sat out the 2010 elections, according to the latest news. As a Hispanic, I agree with Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill) that Obama's immigration policy failures have a lot to do with it. Obama didn't even dare put forth a reform bill, sat on his hands during the DREAM Act debacle and then, to cap insult with injury launched the most intensive deportation sweeps since the Palmer Raids of the 1920s.
For me, the path to convincing myself to vote Republican in 2012, win or lose, begins with the notion that Obama has turned out to be very little better than Bush, if that. Yes, we now have a president who can pronounce the word "nuclear" and who isn't a sheer embarrassment to me in front of my foreign friends.
As with John F. Kennedy in 1960, we broke a prejudice barrier at the ballot box. Although, take note, African-Americans: no Catholic was ever elected to the White House since.
Beyond that, those of us who enthusiastically voted for Obama, who put pro-Obama bumper-stickers on our car (and not the Obama logo one, either), those of us who would like an America that is progressively better, more generous and more kind, we got extremely little.
Would McCain have let the country go to the dogs? Perhaps. This is what scares me about the Libertarian-leaning Tea Party. They're willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater and just watch what happens. We already know what happens when there's nothing standing between ordinary people and those with money: it's called the Middle Ages.
But there's another path to voting Republican in 2012.
Who united the whole world against U.S. imperialism best but George W. Bush? Who convinced people who gave up on the Democrats 30 years ago to do anything to prevent more Republican economic misrule, but George W. Bush? Who convinced everyone most potently of the utter failure of savage, untaxed capitalism, but George W. Bush?
The answer is clear: to radically change the United States we need two, three or more George W. Bush presidencies, driving at least half the country to live in trailer parks and work in gated compounds as maids and security guards (if they're lucky enough to be spared the sweatshops and the unsafe mines). In the 1960s this approach was thought of as intensifying the contradictions of capitalism to create revolutionary conditions, or as others put it, breaking eggs to make an omelet.
Maybe when most Americans live in Brazilian favela-like slums they will wake up. And get out of the way when angry Americans arise.
It's up to Obama. Show me what you've done to earn my vote by November 2012. You haven't yet.
The election I voted in was insignificant. In my Democratic-dominated city, there was a special election to fill a seat on the council and I was sick of voting for the same bunch of corrupt, unimaginative bumblers. "My" candidate lost, anyway.
Yet beware: Obama campaign analysts should see in my naughty yet harmless municipal voting the butterfly's wings aflutter that could set in motion an electoral tsunami in 2012.
I didn't expect too much better from the set of cronies who run City Hall. But I had developed dreams about Obama, with his seductive "yes we can" and his smooth palaver about "change you can believe in." Yet after a health bill without a public option, financial "reform" written in bank boardrooms, and the largest single-year set of cuts in federal spending in history along with the continuation of historic tax cuts, I feel like the voter who's woken up alone in a strange bedroom the morning after election night.
I won't say that Obama is corrupt -- although he got to the Oval Office with a suspiciously large amount of Wall Street money. But his White House could be mistaken for functioning unimaginatively, sometimes to the point that one thinks it's Bush still in charge. As for bumblers, what else should I call an administration that keeps bargaining against itself?
Even the unions, which are not the havens of the most saintly people ever known, have woken up. The International Association of Fire Fighters announced it was cutting off the campaign money spigot for Democrats given their failure to respond to the wave of labor policy rollbacks Republicans are pushing across the nation.
Hispanics and Asians sat out the 2010 elections, according to the latest news. As a Hispanic, I agree with Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill) that Obama's immigration policy failures have a lot to do with it. Obama didn't even dare put forth a reform bill, sat on his hands during the DREAM Act debacle and then, to cap insult with injury launched the most intensive deportation sweeps since the Palmer Raids of the 1920s.
For me, the path to convincing myself to vote Republican in 2012, win or lose, begins with the notion that Obama has turned out to be very little better than Bush, if that. Yes, we now have a president who can pronounce the word "nuclear" and who isn't a sheer embarrassment to me in front of my foreign friends.
As with John F. Kennedy in 1960, we broke a prejudice barrier at the ballot box. Although, take note, African-Americans: no Catholic was ever elected to the White House since.
Beyond that, those of us who enthusiastically voted for Obama, who put pro-Obama bumper-stickers on our car (and not the Obama logo one, either), those of us who would like an America that is progressively better, more generous and more kind, we got extremely little.
Would McCain have let the country go to the dogs? Perhaps. This is what scares me about the Libertarian-leaning Tea Party. They're willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater and just watch what happens. We already know what happens when there's nothing standing between ordinary people and those with money: it's called the Middle Ages.
But there's another path to voting Republican in 2012.
Who united the whole world against U.S. imperialism best but George W. Bush? Who convinced people who gave up on the Democrats 30 years ago to do anything to prevent more Republican economic misrule, but George W. Bush? Who convinced everyone most potently of the utter failure of savage, untaxed capitalism, but George W. Bush?
The answer is clear: to radically change the United States we need two, three or more George W. Bush presidencies, driving at least half the country to live in trailer parks and work in gated compounds as maids and security guards (if they're lucky enough to be spared the sweatshops and the unsafe mines). In the 1960s this approach was thought of as intensifying the contradictions of capitalism to create revolutionary conditions, or as others put it, breaking eggs to make an omelet.
Maybe when most Americans live in Brazilian favela-like slums they will wake up. And get out of the way when angry Americans arise.
It's up to Obama. Show me what you've done to earn my vote by November 2012. You haven't yet.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Bring Back Partisanship!
Just because Nancy Pelosi can't count votes and Harry Reid lacks the stomach to put the nutwing in its place and a part of the electorate thinks Glenn Beck is the new Aristotle, it doesn't mean that it's wrong to be partisan as an adherent to a cause.
Granted, the Republicrats in Congress don't much cotton to causes, beliefs or allegiances of any substance. Their goal in life is to get re-elected and protect the gravy train for wealthy people like themselves.
Conservatives say they are for principles. But let's look at the record. Being red-meat macho about war didn't prevent George W. Bush and Dick Cheney from running away from Vietnam like pansies. Nor did the much vaunted family values keep Newt Gingrich from adultery with a choirsinger while his wife was dying of cancer. Larry (men's room staller) Craig became the poster child for closeted homosexuality, against homophobic speech he's ever delivered.
And all Republicans claim they're all against abortion, but they never passed a ban while they were in the majority in both houses of Congress.
The liberals are not much better. They're for the common man, except when they're making zillions off tort litigation at his expense (John Edwards) or being unable to find a health insurance lobby they didn't like (Max Baucus). They promise change, except when they don't (Barack Obama).
Most, like famous drunken driver Ted Kennedy, were born with a silver spoon and if all their posturing doesn't help anybody, well that's no skin off their noses.
So let's stop pretending to make nice by avoiding the word "kill" in figurative senses, such as the poorly named Repealing the Job-Killing Health-Care Law Act, which they knew damn well would not repeal a damn thing.
Americans disagree profoundly about important things. We have a constitutional right to disagree and to express that disagreement, even in tasteless or hyperbolic terms.
We also have a right to be represented. I don't want the people's representatives pretending we all love each other, when we really don't. There's an good fight to be fought. They're wrong and we're right. Bring it on!
Granted, the Republicrats in Congress don't much cotton to causes, beliefs or allegiances of any substance. Their goal in life is to get re-elected and protect the gravy train for wealthy people like themselves.
Conservatives say they are for principles. But let's look at the record. Being red-meat macho about war didn't prevent George W. Bush and Dick Cheney from running away from Vietnam like pansies. Nor did the much vaunted family values keep Newt Gingrich from adultery with a choirsinger while his wife was dying of cancer. Larry (men's room staller) Craig became the poster child for closeted homosexuality, against homophobic speech he's ever delivered.
And all Republicans claim they're all against abortion, but they never passed a ban while they were in the majority in both houses of Congress.
The liberals are not much better. They're for the common man, except when they're making zillions off tort litigation at his expense (John Edwards) or being unable to find a health insurance lobby they didn't like (Max Baucus). They promise change, except when they don't (Barack Obama).
Most, like famous drunken driver Ted Kennedy, were born with a silver spoon and if all their posturing doesn't help anybody, well that's no skin off their noses.
So let's stop pretending to make nice by avoiding the word "kill" in figurative senses, such as the poorly named Repealing the Job-Killing Health-Care Law Act, which they knew damn well would not repeal a damn thing.
Americans disagree profoundly about important things. We have a constitutional right to disagree and to express that disagreement, even in tasteless or hyperbolic terms.
We also have a right to be represented. I don't want the people's representatives pretending we all love each other, when we really don't. There's an good fight to be fought. They're wrong and we're right. Bring it on!
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
What If Obama Knows What He's Doing?
The taxi driver called me one of those "far left liberals who are disgruntled" when he defended the president out of long overdue ethnic pride, but little else. What if, a nagging thought argued quietly, Barack Obama has a benign overarching plan hidden in plain sight for strategic reasons?
It's a crone of a thought: the mother of all doubts.
Over and over during the 2008 campaign, my heart sank at some apparent stumble. "There goes Obama," I'd muse sadly. I believed, oh how I believed! It was 1960 again (some folks got Kennedy-Johnson bumper stickers to prove it) and this time ... this time there would be no assassinations, no Vietnam.
It took me until the nomination to figure out Obama's strategy. Obviously, he can't do it again the same way; he doesn't need to, in fact. There's also no reason why the president should share his grand plan with, of all things, a blogger.
Still, I'm bitterly disappointed. Let me pluck the health care petal, the finance reform petal and the peace petal to begin counting the ways. Yes, Obama's "deal" keeps millions out of the cold ... for now.
It all comes down to the man: Is Obama merely a more skillful liar than Bush or is he one of those once-in-a-lifetime statesmen with a plan? In the fog of the moment, I can't tell.
It's a crone of a thought: the mother of all doubts.
Over and over during the 2008 campaign, my heart sank at some apparent stumble. "There goes Obama," I'd muse sadly. I believed, oh how I believed! It was 1960 again (some folks got Kennedy-Johnson bumper stickers to prove it) and this time ... this time there would be no assassinations, no Vietnam.
It took me until the nomination to figure out Obama's strategy. Obviously, he can't do it again the same way; he doesn't need to, in fact. There's also no reason why the president should share his grand plan with, of all things, a blogger.
Still, I'm bitterly disappointed. Let me pluck the health care petal, the finance reform petal and the peace petal to begin counting the ways. Yes, Obama's "deal" keeps millions out of the cold ... for now.
It all comes down to the man: Is Obama merely a more skillful liar than Bush or is he one of those once-in-a-lifetime statesmen with a plan? In the fog of the moment, I can't tell.
Friday, December 03, 2010
I can't handle more sellouts
Some time ago I wrote (here) that the Democratic Socialists of America "has embodied to me ... the only kind of U.S. socialism I could abide." No more.They are so completely sold out to the union demagogues and thugs that they might as well not be socialist, because they aren't.
In the most recent election, the local to which I belonged, and in which I was in the "steering committee," preferred to endorse the incompetent with the union stamp of approval, even though I pointed out that neither candidate was really socialist. Winning by a hair's breadth, the bolsheviki-style majority decided to ram down everyone's throat an outrageous and triumphalistic statement that had no relation to reality.
Meanwhile, the one chance in a generation for genuine school reform and cleanup has gone up in smoke and the toadies are back, pushing employment security for the underworked and overpaid deadwood.
This is not socialism, ladies and gentlemen.
In the most recent election, the local to which I belonged, and in which I was in the "steering committee," preferred to endorse the incompetent with the union stamp of approval, even though I pointed out that neither candidate was really socialist. Winning by a hair's breadth, the bolsheviki-style majority decided to ram down everyone's throat an outrageous and triumphalistic statement that had no relation to reality.
Meanwhile, the one chance in a generation for genuine school reform and cleanup has gone up in smoke and the toadies are back, pushing employment security for the underworked and overpaid deadwood.
This is not socialism, ladies and gentlemen.
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
The problem with the Tea Party are the winks and nods of impunity to vent every insane, ugly, unedited and unspeakable brain fart
Living lo these many years as a white person in a majority black city, I witnessed the word "busboy" disappear after riots and the "n-word" reassert itself in full ugliness after Ronald Reagan became president. The problem with electoral swings to the right is the nods and winks that implicitly validate hateful speech.
Since the alleged conservative "Reagan revolution," the Republicans have proven themselves far bigger spenders (on useless things like war) than the Democratic Party ever dreamed of (on useful things such a social insurance and education). The Republicans have not banned abortion, despite all their bellyaching and they really don't want to: they'll lose the base once they do.
George W. Bush's government intervention in the economy was a far larger and swifter infusion than anything Barack Obama eeked out of a (Democratic?) Congress.
So, I'm not really worried about the Tea Party.
Governing is much, much tougher than speaking out against the horror of masturbation out in the hustings. By the time these so-called rebels land in Washington, they'll be bought and paid for, and if they aren't they won't get anywhere. We've always had the best Congress money can buy. That's not changing.
The real difference between Republicans and Democrats at the street level. The Democrats use put downs so clever that most of their targets don't even get; and, sure, they really should cut that out. But the Republicans are the perennial schoolyard bullies and when they reign out comes all the silly and not so silly name calling.
How far, really, is shouting to the first black president "you lie" from calling him a "n-----"?
So out comes the rumor mongering. In 2009 it was "death panels," most recently it's the absurd claim that President Obama's trip to India costs $200 million a day (brought to you, no surprise, by Rupert Murdock's New York Daily "News").
That's what gets me.
Since the alleged conservative "Reagan revolution," the Republicans have proven themselves far bigger spenders (on useless things like war) than the Democratic Party ever dreamed of (on useful things such a social insurance and education). The Republicans have not banned abortion, despite all their bellyaching and they really don't want to: they'll lose the base once they do.
George W. Bush's government intervention in the economy was a far larger and swifter infusion than anything Barack Obama eeked out of a (Democratic?) Congress.
So, I'm not really worried about the Tea Party.
Governing is much, much tougher than speaking out against the horror of masturbation out in the hustings. By the time these so-called rebels land in Washington, they'll be bought and paid for, and if they aren't they won't get anywhere. We've always had the best Congress money can buy. That's not changing.
The real difference between Republicans and Democrats at the street level. The Democrats use put downs so clever that most of their targets don't even get; and, sure, they really should cut that out. But the Republicans are the perennial schoolyard bullies and when they reign out comes all the silly and not so silly name calling.
How far, really, is shouting to the first black president "you lie" from calling him a "n-----"?
So out comes the rumor mongering. In 2009 it was "death panels," most recently it's the absurd claim that President Obama's trip to India costs $200 million a day (brought to you, no surprise, by Rupert Murdock's New York Daily "News").
That's what gets me.
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
Could we do worse if we had a public service lottery?
Imagine no more congressional elections. No more donations to cover campaign expenditures and buy congressional votes. No more whining and name calling; no more oversimplified debates calibrated for the lowest common denominator.
Instead, a national lottery would select, district by district, citizens obligated to serve in the House for two years and in the Senate for six. This would be a service combining elements of jury duty and the military draft.
If you got picked, it would be mandatory to serve. Barring serious illness or distress, you would have to leave your job and take on the work of the congressional seat for which you were selected.
Citizen lawmakers would be paid the same salary they were making before being selected, with cost of living adjustments. They and their families would be housed at public expense, like the military, while in Washington. There would also be a fund for travel home and expenses of office. There would be no gain, and their should be no loss.
Their obligation would be to study the issues before the nation, propose solutions and vote, the same as members of Congress today. They could pick and hire advisers, just like members of Congress today.
Sure, there would be some crazy ideas (aren't there many today?). Yet if we couldn't trust 500 or so citizens chosen at random to collectively come up with something more or less workable, then forget the idea of democracy. Yes, democracy, because representatives of the people would be in charge, with fewer blandishments and pressures than they face today.
Given the fact that Congress has been essentially a club of primarily white, male millionaires from the very beginning, this would be a significant step toward democratization. A Congress of people like you and me, chosen at random.
Instead, a national lottery would select, district by district, citizens obligated to serve in the House for two years and in the Senate for six. This would be a service combining elements of jury duty and the military draft.
If you got picked, it would be mandatory to serve. Barring serious illness or distress, you would have to leave your job and take on the work of the congressional seat for which you were selected.
Citizen lawmakers would be paid the same salary they were making before being selected, with cost of living adjustments. They and their families would be housed at public expense, like the military, while in Washington. There would also be a fund for travel home and expenses of office. There would be no gain, and their should be no loss.
Their obligation would be to study the issues before the nation, propose solutions and vote, the same as members of Congress today. They could pick and hire advisers, just like members of Congress today.
Sure, there would be some crazy ideas (aren't there many today?). Yet if we couldn't trust 500 or so citizens chosen at random to collectively come up with something more or less workable, then forget the idea of democracy. Yes, democracy, because representatives of the people would be in charge, with fewer blandishments and pressures than they face today.
Given the fact that Congress has been essentially a club of primarily white, male millionaires from the very beginning, this would be a significant step toward democratization. A Congress of people like you and me, chosen at random.
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
Write in Adrian Fenty for mayor of Washington, D.C.
if you don't want Josh Williams to puppeteer Vincent Gray.
Monday, November 01, 2010
Before You Vote 3
The Grand Old Party wasn't Lincoln's creation for nothing: it was and remains the stronghold of the financiers of major industry of the North. Reagan was really from Illinois, The Bushes were really Connecticut Yankees, put-on Texas drawl notwithstanding.
Nixon was actually from a part of southern California where I'm told that folks have not heard a new idea they like since indoor plumbing. But he couldn't become president without a sojourn as a Wall Street lawyer.
Let's face it: the Republican Party is and has always been at the service of the top 5 percent of income earners who own 60 percent of the wealth in this country.
Family values? Ask divorced Reagan and Gingrich (who brought the papers to his cancer-ridden wife). Ask former congressmen Henry ("Pro-life constitutional amendment") Hyde about his "youthful indiscretions" in his forties.
Heterosexual? Oh, where do we start? In the men's bathrooms of the Minneapolis airport or in the texting to young male interns?
Pro-life? The Republicans promised to end legal abortion in 1980. It's still with us after Reagan and two Bushes and congresses with Republican majorities in both Houses.
So please, no more saying that the Republicans are about anything else than making sure those at the top pay far less than their share and burden us with far more of the work and cost of keeping our society running.
The GOP is the party of naked, opportunistic greed at our expense.
Nixon was actually from a part of southern California where I'm told that folks have not heard a new idea they like since indoor plumbing. But he couldn't become president without a sojourn as a Wall Street lawyer.
Let's face it: the Republican Party is and has always been at the service of the top 5 percent of income earners who own 60 percent of the wealth in this country.
Family values? Ask divorced Reagan and Gingrich (who brought the papers to his cancer-ridden wife). Ask former congressmen Henry ("Pro-life constitutional amendment") Hyde about his "youthful indiscretions" in his forties.
Heterosexual? Oh, where do we start? In the men's bathrooms of the Minneapolis airport or in the texting to young male interns?
Pro-life? The Republicans promised to end legal abortion in 1980. It's still with us after Reagan and two Bushes and congresses with Republican majorities in both Houses.
So please, no more saying that the Republicans are about anything else than making sure those at the top pay far less than their share and burden us with far more of the work and cost of keeping our society running.
The GOP is the party of naked, opportunistic greed at our expense.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Before You Vote 2
A community organizer was reminding grassroots folks about how they learned to vote for the party of Thomas Jefferson, founding father, Franklin Roosevelt, friend of the working man, and John F. Kennedy, "the saint." The Democrats, he said, come to pick our fresh votes like ripe tomatoes every election season, then they go away and everything stays the same.
That was how the late William Velázquez spoke last I heard him several decades ago. The founder of the Southwest Voter Registration Project liked to shock his mostly liberal, Hispanic audiences in hopes of spurring the realization that voting was not necessarily about voting Democratic.
White liberals have had a way of overpromising and underdelivering. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are the poster children of this bad habit. President Obama should have taken both to the woodshed a year ago.
I think, I still want to believe, that Barack Obama is just about as genuinely well-intentioned a politician as we're likely to see. But, OK, he does appear bought and sold.
Still, we don't have a choice between Obama and anything else. It doesn't matter that he's only offered too small a stimulus, piecemeal health insurance reform and minor tweaks to the finance industry, when government intervention in the economy and major overhauls are needed.
We can protest and cajole and feel a bit silly.
The Democrats may well pick the field clean of our juicy grassroots votes. But the other guys, they want to set the field ablaze.
That was how the late William Velázquez spoke last I heard him several decades ago. The founder of the Southwest Voter Registration Project liked to shock his mostly liberal, Hispanic audiences in hopes of spurring the realization that voting was not necessarily about voting Democratic.
White liberals have had a way of overpromising and underdelivering. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are the poster children of this bad habit. President Obama should have taken both to the woodshed a year ago.
I think, I still want to believe, that Barack Obama is just about as genuinely well-intentioned a politician as we're likely to see. But, OK, he does appear bought and sold.
Still, we don't have a choice between Obama and anything else. It doesn't matter that he's only offered too small a stimulus, piecemeal health insurance reform and minor tweaks to the finance industry, when government intervention in the economy and major overhauls are needed.
We can protest and cajole and feel a bit silly.
The Democrats may well pick the field clean of our juicy grassroots votes. But the other guys, they want to set the field ablaze.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Before You Vote
Explaining the U.S. mid-term elections to a foreigner taught me that we may not know what the powerful are up to, but we can gauge the Tea Party, the Dems and GOP.
We know (don't we?) that the so-called Tea Party movement was puppeteered into existence by right-wing Australian magnate Rupert Murdoch's Fox network in the spring of 2009.
There were no, or very few, actual "tea party" gatherings when Fox set the buzz off. At best, there were a few disgruntled, die-hard Republicans who couldn't accept the 2008 electoral verdict that John McCain accepted with elan.
The whole thing was a media-created event right out of the 1976 movie "Network," including the slogan "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more."
Anger and just plain being mad doesn't make up for an ideology or a plan. Aside from misspelling and complete ignorance of the U.S. Constitution and government, what does this alleged movement stand for?
They're against taxes, homosexuals, aid to the poor and any effort to reverse centuries of racism. They're in favor of a new form of racism against immigrant-looking people (absurdity not mine), chastity before marriage and "life" so long as it's not found in war or poor neighborhoods.
Insofar as economic policy is concerned, they essentially want to square the circle: they want to fight the war on "terror," keep government's hands off their Medicare and halt all deficits and debts instantly.
What if every last Tea Party candidate, or a weighty number, wins? It will be fun to watch until we begin to experience the consequences.
We know (don't we?) that the so-called Tea Party movement was puppeteered into existence by right-wing Australian magnate Rupert Murdoch's Fox network in the spring of 2009.
There were no, or very few, actual "tea party" gatherings when Fox set the buzz off. At best, there were a few disgruntled, die-hard Republicans who couldn't accept the 2008 electoral verdict that John McCain accepted with elan.
The whole thing was a media-created event right out of the 1976 movie "Network," including the slogan "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more."
Anger and just plain being mad doesn't make up for an ideology or a plan. Aside from misspelling and complete ignorance of the U.S. Constitution and government, what does this alleged movement stand for?
They're against taxes, homosexuals, aid to the poor and any effort to reverse centuries of racism. They're in favor of a new form of racism against immigrant-looking people (absurdity not mine), chastity before marriage and "life" so long as it's not found in war or poor neighborhoods.
Insofar as economic policy is concerned, they essentially want to square the circle: they want to fight the war on "terror," keep government's hands off their Medicare and halt all deficits and debts instantly.
What if every last Tea Party candidate, or a weighty number, wins? It will be fun to watch until we begin to experience the consequences.
Monday, August 02, 2010
Why Congresscritters (and "Outsider" opponents) Don't Care About You
Congress and the self-dubbed "outsiders" who are vying to win their seat this November ultimately don't give a damn about the likes of you and me (assuming you're not a billionaire) -- nor much, much less the unemployed and the poor. The question is: How come?
Aren't these supposed to be the people's spokesmen and women defending "the little guy" (and gal)? No. Here are three reasons why:
So, if they're not average folk, they don't need our campaign money and can do just fine without our votes -- why in hell would they care?
Aren't these supposed to be the people's spokesmen and women defending "the little guy" (and gal)? No. Here are three reasons why:
- They are not like you and me. Almost anyone who runs for Congress, certainly almost everybody in Congress, is a multimillionaire. They went to the best (read: most expensive, private) schools and played ... what's that Iroquois game called, again? ... ah, yes, lacrosse.
- You and me can't finance electoral campaigns. Didn't the last presidential candidates spend about $100 million apiece? You can frisk me all you want, but I don't have that kind of money. If I did, why would I throw it away on someone else's political campaign? The only reason would be to get laws that apply to everybody else, but not me.
- You and me don't have the necessary votes. Who votes the most? The elderly, who are as a whole well off and want their well-being protected. The rich and most educated, ditto. Some of the middle class (including those people who can't tell Jay Leno what the candidate they voted for looks like) -- most against their best interests. Not enough people who depend on public services and help ever vote.
So, if they're not average folk, they don't need our campaign money and can do just fine without our votes -- why in hell would they care?
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Bravo, President Obama!
Watching President Obama speak in the Rose Garden yesterday, I was transfixed by the way he finally grasped the staff of stern, paternal, take-charge leadership. What he did in response to civilian vs. military bickering had the substance of presidential timber.
Whatever one may think about the military intervention in Afghanistan or the Rolling Stone piece (click here) about General Stanley McChrystal, no president should allow the public appearance of disunity at the highest levels to persist a moment longer than is practically necessary.
It sends the wrong message to friends, critics, tagalongs and enemies.
Obama knows full well that not everyone agrees with his policy, jot and tittle. As an intelligent man with a sense of humor, he probably even chuckled at some of the juvenile antics of McChrystal and his staff as reported in the magazine — I certainly did.
But, at present, Obama isn't a private citizen with an expansive intellect: he is head of state in a republic that persists in the historical tradition that people in uniform follow the civilian political leadership, do or die.
Everyone needed to know he is willing to bite the bullet and assume the command that we, the people, placed in his able hands.
Among those who needed to see this were voters like me who were disappointed Obama didn't show such mettle to bring about real reform in health and finance.
Obama's alleged friends also needed to see this: from his self-important band of national security staffers in the White House, to the spineless marvels pretending to lead the Democratic Party in Congress, to the men and women in that den of contracting thieves known as the Pentagon.
Include also critics such as such as the Sunday TV talk show second-guessers, the clueless Republicans, the appallingly undereducated tea-partiers and, yes, the self-inflated windbags such as David Brooks and Charles Krauthammer.
Count among the tagalongs the governments of France and Canada, European businesses, bowing Asian "allies" ready to stab in the back anyone who dares expose themselves that way and the leaders of the Israeli client-state who think they can go it alone.
Then there are the enemies, from the obvious ones in the Middle East, such as Al Qaeda and buddies to the enemies of the United States comfortably ensconced within our borders, less obvious but as venomous, such as BP, the oil industry as a whole, the protection racket called the insurance industry and so many others among the few and the corporate.
All take note: President Obama won't take any more childishness.
Still, I would hope Obama can find a quiet place for McChrystal doing the black ops at which he excelled (which match my prescription as explained here).
Also, I do hope that he shows the same mettle in domestic matters where conflict just as deadly as Afghanistan is going on.
Whatever one may think about the military intervention in Afghanistan or the Rolling Stone piece (click here) about General Stanley McChrystal, no president should allow the public appearance of disunity at the highest levels to persist a moment longer than is practically necessary.
It sends the wrong message to friends, critics, tagalongs and enemies.
Obama knows full well that not everyone agrees with his policy, jot and tittle. As an intelligent man with a sense of humor, he probably even chuckled at some of the juvenile antics of McChrystal and his staff as reported in the magazine — I certainly did.
But, at present, Obama isn't a private citizen with an expansive intellect: he is head of state in a republic that persists in the historical tradition that people in uniform follow the civilian political leadership, do or die.
Everyone needed to know he is willing to bite the bullet and assume the command that we, the people, placed in his able hands.
Among those who needed to see this were voters like me who were disappointed Obama didn't show such mettle to bring about real reform in health and finance.
Obama's alleged friends also needed to see this: from his self-important band of national security staffers in the White House, to the spineless marvels pretending to lead the Democratic Party in Congress, to the men and women in that den of contracting thieves known as the Pentagon.
Include also critics such as such as the Sunday TV talk show second-guessers, the clueless Republicans, the appallingly undereducated tea-partiers and, yes, the self-inflated windbags such as David Brooks and Charles Krauthammer.
Count among the tagalongs the governments of France and Canada, European businesses, bowing Asian "allies" ready to stab in the back anyone who dares expose themselves that way and the leaders of the Israeli client-state who think they can go it alone.
Then there are the enemies, from the obvious ones in the Middle East, such as Al Qaeda and buddies to the enemies of the United States comfortably ensconced within our borders, less obvious but as venomous, such as BP, the oil industry as a whole, the protection racket called the insurance industry and so many others among the few and the corporate.
All take note: President Obama won't take any more childishness.
Still, I would hope Obama can find a quiet place for McChrystal doing the black ops at which he excelled (which match my prescription as explained here).
Also, I do hope that he shows the same mettle in domestic matters where conflict just as deadly as Afghanistan is going on.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Elect Alvin Green?
Like most folks, I know almost nothing about Alvin Green, the nominated South Carolina Democratic Party candidate for U.S. Senate. He's a 32-year-old military veteran who has neither campaigned nor raised money, other than the blatantly anti-democratic $10,400 candidacy filing fee. Green, who is black, won a primary in a state that has not elected an African-American in living memory.
Green apparently has said nothing and seems a bit confused about his candidacy, let alone his platform -- a blank slate so far. Some say he won the primary because his was the top name on the ballot.
The Democratic Party bosses are squirming, of course. But I wonder what it would be like to have in the Senate an ordinary citizen, even a perplexed one. If this is a Republican dirty trick, as some are suggesting, let's have more of them.
What if the people conducted the people's business in Congress, instead of expensively tailored and coiffed slick mouthpieces of the wealthy and corporations?
Democracy, a novel idea.
Green apparently has said nothing and seems a bit confused about his candidacy, let alone his platform -- a blank slate so far. Some say he won the primary because his was the top name on the ballot.
The Democratic Party bosses are squirming, of course. But I wonder what it would be like to have in the Senate an ordinary citizen, even a perplexed one. If this is a Republican dirty trick, as some are suggesting, let's have more of them.
What if the people conducted the people's business in Congress, instead of expensively tailored and coiffed slick mouthpieces of the wealthy and corporations?
Democracy, a novel idea.
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
GOP BS about Reconciliation
Let's retire the notion being pushed like crack that using "reconciliation" to get what's been watered down to health care consumer protection passed through the U.S. Senate is something terribly, terribly unusual and sinister. The pushers, Republicans such as Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), should be ashamed of themselves for this naked effort to throw pixie dust at the public to protect their insurance industry patrons.
The facts of the matter are that reconciliation, a procedure created to bypass an arcane Senate practice to make sure, among other things, that the federal government has funds on which to legally operate, was first used in 1981 by the ... wait for it ... Republicans!
Let's consider what 59% means.
Remember Ronald Reagan's 1980 "landslide" electoral victory that made him president? He only got 50.7% of the votes cast. In contrast, Lyndon B. Johnson won 61% of the votes cast 1964 -- that was a real landslide.
Under the Senate's 60% supermajority rule needed to defeat a filibuster, neither Abraham Lincoln nor John F. Kennedy would have been elected. Nor would any president since Lyndon Johnson, including Barack Obama and both Bushes.
The famously portrayed filibuster by actor Jimmy Stewart in the 1939 film "Mr. Smith Comes to Washington" isn't even how filibusters occur today at all. There's no continuous talkathon, no drama at all and really no effort.
Last week, by one vote upholding a filibuster, that of Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky), the unemployment benefits of millions of people came to a crashing halt this past Sunday, just when the duration of joblessness is at an all-time-record.
The facts of the matter are that reconciliation, a procedure created to bypass an arcane Senate practice to make sure, among other things, that the federal government has funds on which to legally operate, was first used in 1981 by the ... wait for it ... Republicans!
- 17 of the 23 reconciliation bills signed into law, were enacted by Republican presidents;
- If you have ever continued under your employer's health plan after you were laid off under "COBRA" benefits, that's due to the 1974 Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act;
- Welfare reforms were passed in 1996 thanks to one Newton Leroy Gingrich (then R-Ga), in the the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act.
Let's consider what 59% means.
Remember Ronald Reagan's 1980 "landslide" electoral victory that made him president? He only got 50.7% of the votes cast. In contrast, Lyndon B. Johnson won 61% of the votes cast 1964 -- that was a real landslide.
Under the Senate's 60% supermajority rule needed to defeat a filibuster, neither Abraham Lincoln nor John F. Kennedy would have been elected. Nor would any president since Lyndon Johnson, including Barack Obama and both Bushes.
The famously portrayed filibuster by actor Jimmy Stewart in the 1939 film "Mr. Smith Comes to Washington" isn't even how filibusters occur today at all. There's no continuous talkathon, no drama at all and really no effort.
Last week, by one vote upholding a filibuster, that of Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky), the unemployment benefits of millions of people came to a crashing halt this past Sunday, just when the duration of joblessness is at an all-time-record.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Time to Turn the Page?
The upcoming retirement of Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) ushers in a Kennedy-less era in Congress for the first time since 1963. That year, the congressman's father filled the congressional void left by JFK when he left the Senate for the White House, in 1961.
Of course, ever since 1963 to 1968, when American history seemed to take a series of unexpected and unpleasant turns, many of us have been wishing we could set the caravan of this democratic experience back on what once seemed an expansive and generous direction.
But maybe that's folly. Certainly, the current crop of Kennedys old enough to be in public life don't measure up to their fathers -- even the tawdry Edward M. -- or their mothers.
Maybe it's time to give up on the Kennedy-Johnson era dreams, just as perhaps it's time to set its nightmares to rest, without abandoning the bigger, broader notions on which they rested.
The central aspiration is to see the United States become a just society with compassion for its weakest members, with fairness for all its citizens and with the willingness to lead the world by generous example, rather than the force of arms.
We don't need to close the book. Just let's turn this one page.
Of course, ever since 1963 to 1968, when American history seemed to take a series of unexpected and unpleasant turns, many of us have been wishing we could set the caravan of this democratic experience back on what once seemed an expansive and generous direction.
But maybe that's folly. Certainly, the current crop of Kennedys old enough to be in public life don't measure up to their fathers -- even the tawdry Edward M. -- or their mothers.
Maybe it's time to give up on the Kennedy-Johnson era dreams, just as perhaps it's time to set its nightmares to rest, without abandoning the bigger, broader notions on which they rested.
The central aspiration is to see the United States become a just society with compassion for its weakest members, with fairness for all its citizens and with the willingness to lead the world by generous example, rather than the force of arms.
We don't need to close the book. Just let's turn this one page.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Was Coakley an Insurance Company Puppet?
Who knows how these things are done: some fat cats get together in their no longer smoke-filled room and pick people to run for office? They've never invited me to participate. But if you follow the Roman adage "qui bono?" (who benefits?), it's clear that some folks who are powerful get the best government money can buy.
That brings me back to Martha Coakley, the would-be senator (D-Kennedy) who lost what looked like a shoo-in election just weeks ago. Who benefited from that?
Her defeat means that insurance companies can continue to make gazillions off you and me, since what is left of health care legislation no longer merits the name "reform." By some accounts they'll now make more money and squeeze us even harder.
So why couldn't Coakley have been put up to run with the full knowledge that she would shoot herself in the foot worse than Creigh Deeds? There was no one available to run for the crucial senate seat who had enough common sense to know that it's cold in Massachusetts or to hire people who can spell the state's name?
If you believe that, I have a very nice bridge for you. It crosses the East River.
That brings me back to Martha Coakley, the would-be senator (D-Kennedy) who lost what looked like a shoo-in election just weeks ago. Who benefited from that?
Her defeat means that insurance companies can continue to make gazillions off you and me, since what is left of health care legislation no longer merits the name "reform." By some accounts they'll now make more money and squeeze us even harder.
So why couldn't Coakley have been put up to run with the full knowledge that she would shoot herself in the foot worse than Creigh Deeds? There was no one available to run for the crucial senate seat who had enough common sense to know that it's cold in Massachusetts or to hire people who can spell the state's name?
If you believe that, I have a very nice bridge for you. It crosses the East River.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Coakley -- Change You're Forced to Put Up With
How did it come to this in exactly one year? Last January 20 I was freezing my butt off trying to find my way to the area of the presidential inauguration to which I had tickets. Everything was so hopeful. Today the guys in the black hats have won their obstructionist spot: they have nothing to offer, so they block.
Frankly, the Democratic politicians deserve what they got. President Obama proved to be a wimp, Senate Majority Leader Reid proved to be nothing of the sort, House Speaker Pelosi proved she couldn't politick her way out of a paper bag.
It was a new era of change we could believe in, of hope, of peace. Instead we got endless war, derailed health care reform, same old same old. Martha Coakley proved to be a worse candidate than Virginia's Creigh Deeds, which I didn't believe possible!
So now, Fast Eddie's seat goes to the 41st Republican senator, the one who can shut the whole thing down. Let's all close the store and go fishin'.
Frankly, the Democratic politicians deserve what they got. President Obama proved to be a wimp, Senate Majority Leader Reid proved to be nothing of the sort, House Speaker Pelosi proved she couldn't politick her way out of a paper bag.
It was a new era of change we could believe in, of hope, of peace. Instead we got endless war, derailed health care reform, same old same old. Martha Coakley proved to be a worse candidate than Virginia's Creigh Deeds, which I didn't believe possible!
So now, Fast Eddie's seat goes to the 41st Republican senator, the one who can shut the whole thing down. Let's all close the store and go fishin'.
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