The myth of a safety net for the unemployed

Posted on July 18, 2010 by oddmanout215

Why is the media so blase about the plight of the long-term unemployed?

This question came to mind after I read today’s New York Times story by Michael Luo about an unemployed woman named Terri Sadler who had, according to Luo, “used up 79 weeks of benefits but was expecting an additional 20 weeks under the extended federal program.”

In a subsequent e-mail to Luo, I wrote that he should have stated “that more than a million unemployed people already have exhausted their benefits (99 weeks is the limit) and will receive no further aid. Even if an extension is passed, those in Ms. Sadler’s position will quickly hit the 99-week wall and be back to zero income.” I added, “The real story here is that there are no jobs and no relief in sight for Americans who ‘max out’ at 99 weeks. Who among our legislative representatives is working to help these people? Why didn’t YOU ask this question?”

Luo sent this prompt reply: “The plight of 99ers has definitely been on my mind. In fact, that’s the story I had intended to write at the outset. I found Terri on a Facebook group for 99ers. I quickly learned, of course, she wasn’t really a 99er. But her situation was still compelling in light of the Senate impasse. I asked my editor what I should do. He said we should do a quick hit on her and come back to the 99ers. The problem, of course, is the story would sound very similar. I told him that. He said we’d have to sort it out, which we will. These things are complicated, what goes into figuring out when a story is undertaken or not… The point is, we’re aware of the issue and mean to get to it. I just ask for some forbearance.”

Luo seems to be one of the good guys — a reporter who seems to want to communicate the urgency of the unemployment problem. Unfortunately, a lot of other people at major news organizations aren’t nearly as conscientious.

My hunch is that indifference to the plight of the 99ers  — out of work, out of money and, often, out on the streets — by cynics in Congress is being underreported because the gatekeepers of mainstream news are afraid that right-wingers will accuse them of bias.

Right-wingers pretend to believe that further aid to the jobless will prevent Congress from balancing the budget. They pretend the federal budget deficit that developed over the past decade wasn’t caused by massive tax cuts for the rich and the funding of two foreign wars. They pretend that shining a light on corrupt legislators — those who act in the interest of corporations seeking tax breaks rather than private citizens seeking jobless benefits — amounts to biased reporting.

One of the biggest domestic stories since the Great Depression has been placed on the back burner by the media. Pretty odd, no?

Posted in mainstream media, New York Times | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Geno’s is proof you are what you eat

Posted on July 15, 2010 by oddmanout215

I witnessed anti-immigrant anger yesterday at Geno’s, a South Philly sandwich shop that, even on a good day, looks like a lunch spot for loonies. The outdoor tables under sheet metal awnings, fluorescent light on orange tiles, angry white men in ball caps, the smell of processed meat, the local wing nut broadcasting his radio show from the sidewalk – all this seemed a recipe for the sort of bigotry-fueled urban violence depicted decades ago by Robert Stone in his novel A Hall of Mirrors.

At issue was the strict immigration law recently passed in Arizona. On one side of the street were protesters alarmed by the antics of Geno’s owner Joey Vento, the rally’s organizer, who likes to rant about illegals. On the other side, at Geno’s, were Vento’s supporters, angry patriots who eat the fat-drenched swill he traffics in. In the middle were hunched and grizzled plainclothes cops whose every gesture seemed to say, “I can’t wait to retire next year…”

Vento and his fellow yahoos want the illegals sent back across the Rio Grande. “We have laws in this country,” the cheesesteak tycoon told a newspaper reporter. “That’s what makes us different from any other country.”

Actually, what made our country different was that immigrants weren’t hamstrung by draconian laws when they got off the boat. They were relatively free to build new lives for themselves. They worked hard and maybe caught a few breaks and often found themselves prospering. The children or grandchildren of these immigrants – even obnoxious self-promoters like Joey Vento – sometimes prospered in a big way.

And yet these children of immigrants, these Cheez Whiz worshippers who drove their gas guzzlers from the suburbs to the city on a moronic whim, don’t feel prosperous. They won’t acknowledge, or are too dumb to realize, that their anti-immigrant political heroes are the same people who authorized huge tax cuts for the rich and two ongoing foreign wars – the main reasons why the U.S. budget surplus became a deficit over the past decade. They know the economy is on the skids and blame its decline on Democrats in government and poor dark people.

Yesterday, Vento said fellow South Philly business owners who hire illegal immigrants should go to prison, where they will “see Big Bubba looking at them” – his term for black inmates – and decide to mend their ways. What is it about some people that makes them instantly conflate fear and loathing with Hispanics and blacks?

I think it’s their diet.

Posted in immigration, Philadelphia | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

The audacity of nope

Posted on July 14, 2010 by oddmanout215

Am I the Odd Man Out, or are there other Democrats who think President Obama is doing a piss-poor job of helping people made sick by BP’s poisoning of the Gulf of Mexico?

Certain facts are obvious. BP’s reaction to its oil-gush disaster – blanket denials, wagon circling, finger-pointing – marks a new low in the long history of corporate criminality. It’s no surprise that the company discouraged the use of respirators among workers involved in its half-hearted clean-up efforts. To do otherwise would be a tacit admission that skimming crude oil is a health hazard and would leave the company open to sky-high liability claims. Tony Hayward and his corporate cronies won’t let this happen, not without a fight. These guys would kill us all to keep BP afloat, and they’d make sure their PR department put a good spin on the slaughter.

But we already knew about BP. The mystery here is Barack Obama. Last month the president persuaded BP to set up a $20 billion escrow fund for those whose livelihoods are damaged by the ongoing spill – a lot of money, though not nearly enough for a disaster of this magnitude. But what is he doing now, this summer, to protect the health of BP’s victims? Why did it take BPMakesMeSick.com, a petition initiated last week by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), to call attention to the plight of those doing BP’s dirty work? Why hasn’t Obama issued a statement condemning BP’s disregard for workers’ safety concerns?

In the June 28 New Yorker Heinrik Hertzberg argued that Obama’s efforts to help the Gulf Coast, and his public image, have been undermined by House and Senate Republicans determined to block all initiatives that might help him win re-election in 2012. Good point, Heinrik, but you gloss over the extent to which Obama’s problems are a consequence of his inability to lead.

A leader – someone with a basic understanding of how to drum up public support for important legislation – doesn’t parse words in an effort to appease opponents of the public good (see Obama’s anemic June 15th speech re the spill). He doesn’t let oil industry lackeys paint him as a villain for trying to protect us against the poor, defenseless multinational that has all but destroyed maritime businesses in the Gulf states. Instead, he finds a way to articulate public outrage at BP and its Republican apologists.

Yesterday, Mother Jones magazine reported that more than 60,000 Americans have signed the PCCC petition, which states: “President Obama and the federal government must demand that BP allow every clean-up worker who wants to wear respiratory protective equipment to do so—and ensure that workers get the equipment and training they need to do their jobs safely.”

Still not a peep out of Obama.

Few realists expected this president, when he took office, to unleash the fighting spirit and political cunning of a Franklin D. Roosevelt. But it has been sickening to see him cave so miserably to pressure from monster companies that continue to rob and exploit working people in America. I think my friends, the ones who insist that Obama is more than a DINO (Democrat In Name Only, pronounced like Dean Martin’s nickname), are walking around in a fog. But I still hope he transforms himself and proves me dead wrong.

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