Serfin’ USA (the new feudalism)

Posted on February 22, 2012 by oddmanout215

Did Cameron Diaz go under the knife? Will the stars of Hangover 3 score big pay increases? These are the questions that try journalists’ souls.

Meanwhile, in another world, in a piece called “Is Market Capitalism Dead?,” Columbia Prof. Thomas B. Edsall focuses on questions of far less import to brain-dead Americans:

Are large segments of the American workforce — millions of people — at a structural disadvantage in the face of global competition, technological advance and ever more sophisticated forms of automation? Is this situation permanent?

Will the share of profits from improving corporate productivity flowing to capital and to high-earning C.E.O.s continue to grow, while the income of wage earners stagnates and their share of profits declines?

Has the surging wealth and income of the top one percent and of the top 0.1 percent reached a tipping point at which the political leverage of the very affluent decisively outweighs the influence of the electorate at large?

Is it possible that in the United States and Europe, democratic free market capitalism is no longer capable of providing broadly shared benefits to a solid majority of workers?

Read the piece and you’ll see Edsall is reluctantly answering “yes” to all of his questions, although he notes the situation isn’t nearly as bleak in northern Europe. Barring some act of God, or social upheaval that results in something akin to revolution, the numbers indicate that the 99 percent in the USA are screwed.

Edsall makes a bleak but polite-sounding statement in the last paragraph:

The debate over the workings of democracy, the market, technology and globalization remains unresolved. The political system instinctively avoids this debate, despite its salience and centrality, because the political costs of engagement are likely to substantially outweigh any potential gains.

In other words, expect only doubletalk from politicians, because they know honesty would cost them ties to their sugar daddies, and their jobs. Expect pious lies and outright lunacy from Republican presidential candidates, and pretty words masking brutal realities from Obama.

Perhaps more so than at any time in our history, the situation cries out for a third-party candidate who will speak the truths that the corporate media and almost all politicians ignore. How do I campaign for this candidate? Did I miss something?

Posted in economic collapse, globalization, mainstream media, Mitt Romney, New York Times, unemployment, Wall Street, world-wide economy | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

My birthday in outer space

Posted on February 20, 2012 by oddmanout215

John Glenn on Feb. 20, 1962

I love the past, which doesn’t exist/until I summon it, or make it up,/and I love how you believe/and certify me by your belief,/whoever you are, a fiction too,/held together by what? Personality?/Voice…?

— from “Loves,” by Stephen Dunn

****

My mother and I must have taken the #11 trolley to Center City and walked five blocks to the department store at Eighth and Market. I remember a row of TV sets in the store, each repeatedly showing a clip of a rocket lifting off, so that viewers could see the launch at Cape Canaveral had gone well. Walter Cronkite’s soothing TV voice provided further assurance that astronaut John Glenn was far above the atmosphere in his space capsule, single-handedly winning the space race against the Russians. This was in 1962.

Customers watched the multiple images of the ascending rocket. I could tell by Cronkite’s tone that Glenn was a hero. He circled the Earth not once but three times, in five hours. On TV, Glenn’s voyage seemed remote and undramatic, not at all like the sci-fi movie voyages I loved. But I knew his was a great feat, because it was taking place on my birthday, February 20.

I can’t remember why my mother was shopping, but on the floor where the toys were she told me to choose a present for myself. I picked a half-dozen plastic figurines shaped like astronauts — spacemen, wearing little helmets and spacesuits. At home that evening there was a birthday cake for me, and I planted my spacemen feet-first in the vanilla icing on top of the cake, and pretended the cake was the moon.

Along with most people, I figured Glenn or one of his space buddies would soon land on the moon, just as JFK had promised. After the moon, they’d go to Mars and beyond. I decided to become a spaceman. A few years later, America did land spacemen on the moon, but those landings marked the end of an era, not the beginning. We Earthlings couldn’t afford to visit other worlds, we were spending too much money destroying this one.

I considered other lines of work — archaeologist, deep-sea diver, bartender — and many years later settled on fiction writer, which is to say I became a sort of spaceman, exploring the gulf between dreams and realities, intentions and results, earthbound but always on the verge of becoming lost in space.

Footnote: John Glenn is 90 years old and still going strong, 50 years after his brief but grand voyage.

Posted in history, humor | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

GOP gets medieval on our ass

Posted on February 19, 2012 by oddmanout215

Ving Rhames in Pulp Fiction

My two favorite Catholics recently weighed in regarding American bishops opposed to the use of contraceptives. First comedian Stephen Colbert warned that American Catholic women who are unopposed — i.e., the majority of those who are sexually active — are “cock-blocking the Almighty.” Then Garry Wills, a veteran journalist who is also a historian and classical scholar, wrote a reminder that what the bishops think of contraception is irrelevant to Catholics and doubly irrelevant to the rest of the population:

Contraception is not even a religious matter. Nowhere in Scripture or the Creed is it forbidden…

…Catholics who do not accept the [bishops’] phony argument over contraception are said to be “going against the teachings of their church.” That is nonsense. They are their church. The Second Vatican Council defines the church as “the people of God.” Thinking that the pope is the church is a relic of the days when a monarch was said to be his realm. The king was “Denmark.” Catholics have long realized that their own grasp of certain things, especially sex, has a validity that is lost on the celibate male hierarchy. This is particularly true where celibacy is concerned…

I’m guessing the only reason Wills wrote the piece was to remind non-Catholics that the “nice smiley fanatic” Rick Santorum speaks not for the vast majority of Catholics, but rather for a contingent of yahoo Christians who want to “get medieval” on our ass, to paraphrase Ving Rhames in Pulp Fiction.

It’s a pretty sad commentary on American culture that the medieval contingent still wields so much power in one of our major political parties.

Posted in humor, movies | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

The evil-of-two-lessers argument

Posted on February 17, 2012 by oddmanout215

Do progressives need reminding that the current crop of Republicans are intent on scuttling New Deal legislation and pushing the country further to the right than Mussolini’s Italy?

Of course not, but this doesn’t stop “centrists” from scolding those of us who can’t stomach Barack Obama’s refusal to fight on our behalf. Yes, we’re appalled that Paul Ryan and company are trying to rip down the social safety net and reduce workers to virtual serfdom, but we’re even more appalled that Obama, instead of launching a spirited counterattack on these borderline fascists, has repeatedly given ground without firing a shot.

Bill Boyarsky of Truthdig recently conceded that Obama has disappointed “many supporters”:

He let the Republicans push him around for too long. While the nation is slowly recovering from the recession, the Obama stimulus was too small. He gave away too much to Wall Street in the Dodd-Frank financial industry regulatory legislation… But looking at his accomplishments in the face of the recession and a reluctant Congress, he’s done pretty well.

A wide gulf separates centrist Democrats from those Dems who think Obama and his friends have betrayed the principles that distinguish Dems from Republicans. Declaring that Obama has done “pretty well” compared to what a Republican would have done is like saying, “Obama’s not that good, but a Republican would have been downright evil. Is that what you progressives would prefer?”

Boyarsky defends Obama by pointing to the latter’s healthcare reform bill, which many progressives think is a disaster because it strengthens the corrupt insurance companies at the heart of poor healthcare in America. He mentions that Obama saved GM and Chrysler, but not that wages and benefits for workers at those companies were drastically slashed, or that Obama has done nothing to strengthen or even defend labor unions.

No one in recent years has done more than Obama to encourage the suspicion that there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between the two major parties. Boyarsky’s pathetic arguments do nothing but reinforce this suspicion.

Posted in mainstream media, Obama, The New Depression, unemployment | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Thou shalt not cock-block the Lord

Posted on February 16, 2012 by oddmanout215

Stephen Colbert recently explained the theological underpinnings of the Church’s opposition to contraception, and warned birth control users that their sin is a grave one:

The transmission of human life is a most serious role in which married people collaborate freely and responsibly with God. You see, to Catholics, sex isn’t two drunk strangers getting their freak on at closing time. It is the mystical union of two people inspired to create new physical life while God adds a soul in a divine and ineffably beautiful three-way. So, when you use contraception, you are not only sinning, you are cock-blocking the Almighty.

Watch the video here.

Footnote: I can picture Stephen at the grade school I attended, Most Blessed Sacrament, before contraception ended the baby boom. Sister Mary Mastodon would beat have him over the head with the Baltimore catechism, then hung him by his heels out a third-story window until he repented. And so what if he fell, there were three thousand other kids to babysit.

Posted in humor | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Caterpillar calls the shots

Posted on February 16, 2012 by oddmanout215

With the election approaching, President Obama says he’s working hard to come up with incentives that will encourage American companies to bring home jobs that have been outsourced. However, an item in Reader Supported News sheds light on how badly American workers can expect to be treated by these companies:

Heavy equipment manufacturer Caterpillar Inc. has decided to shut down the 62-year-old Electro-Motive Diesel (EMD) locomotive assembly plant in London, Ontario, and relocate operations to Muncie, Indiana. The move came after a labor dispute erupted between the company and its Canadian unionized workers, who refused to accept a 50% cut in their pay and benefits. Caterpillar purchased EMD in June 2010.

By relocating to Muncie, Caterpillar is expecting to save money by employing non-union employees. In London, the average hourly wage was $34. Down in Muncie, Caterpillar’s outlay will range from $12 an hour for assemblers to $18.50 for maintenance technicians.

Between 2005 and 2010, Caterpillar’s overseas workforce grew by 15,900 employees. During this time period, the company added only 3,400 Americans to its payroll.

Once word got out that Caterpillar was coming to town with 460 new jobs, residents of Muncie applied by the thousands, with some showing up at 4 a.m., five hours in advance, outside the company’s offices.

Posted in globalization, Great Recession, mainstream media, Obama, The New Depression, unemployment | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

‘I’m Looking Through You’

Posted on February 15, 2012 by oddmanout215

I assumed for many years, because of the scorned and scornful tone of the lyrics, that this was a Lennon song. Actually, McCartney wrote most of it. The fact that he’s the lead singer should have tipped me off. John plays acoustic rhythm guitar and sings back-up.

Footnote: Paul is 69 and sounding a bit ragged (check out the Grammy Awards), but so what? The Beatles’ records will never get old.

Posted in arts, pop music | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Mitt, they see right through you

Posted on February 15, 2012 by oddmanout215

Gertrude Stein’s famous quotation — “There is no there, there” — is as good a way an any to describe Mitt Romney, who can’t seem to make a public statement without lying and/or contradicting himself. A Huffington Post story explains why one of Mitt’s most bold-faced lies may come back to haunt him in the Michigan primary:

In his recent op-ed, Romney — who also opposed the bailout in an op-ed in The New York Times in 2008 — argued that automakers should have been left to go bankrupt on their own, letting the courts force the companies to restructure. As the son of both a previous Michigan governor and former head of the American Motors Corporation, Romney says he speaks from experience. He was born in Detroit, after all.

The bailout gave the unions too much power in the new companies, Romney argued, and gives the government a large stake in General Motors that it should divest itself of immediately.

Yet in the fall of 2008 and early 2009, there weren’t any banks willing to help GM or Chrysler through bankruptcy. If a company goes into bankruptcy without a bank willing to fund operations for a while, companies typically go out of business and are sold piece by piece.

Without someone stepping in, it seemed GM and Chrysler would sink. And Ford, which didn’t take bailout money, urged the government to come forward. If the two other automotive giants in town went under, they could drag Ford under, too, CEO Alan Mulally told Congress.

Mitt still has almost two weeks and millions of dollars to turn things around in his old home state, but it won’t be easy. Even the most gullible Republican voters can see right through him on this one.

Posted in economic collapse, Great Recession, liar, Mitt Romney, The New Depression, unemployment | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

‘Who Do You Love?’

Posted on February 14, 2012 by oddmanout215

I walked 47 miles of barbed wire/Used a cobra snake for a neck tie/Got a brand new house on the roadside/And it’s made out of rattlesnake hide/I got a brand new chimney put on top/Made out of human skulls/Come on take a little walk with me, baby/Tell me, who do you love?

Bo Diddley made “Who Do You Love?” in 1956, and many acts since then have tried to record the badass definitive version of the song. Everyone from Ronnie Hawkins (backed by the Band), to John Hammond (also back by the Band), to the Doors, to George Thorogood.

It’s a tough song to do right. You have to have a tombstone hand and a graveyard mind, you can’t mind dyin’. You have to be a romantic.

Posted in arts, pop music | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Isn’t it romantic?

Posted on February 14, 2012 by oddmanout215

The ad was shown during the Super Bowl, to make sure it reached the maximum number of sophisticates. The girl in the ad is a famous foreign model — “super-hot,” as they say on the sports radio stations. You know she’s hot stuff because the background music sounds like someone is having sex, or maybe shooting meth. The model recites the ad copy:

Guyz, Valentine’s Day izz not that complicated… Give, and you shall receive.

Subtle! Izz like this, guyz: Valentine’s Day is about goods and services. You give me the goods — cash is best — and you shall be serviced.

She was supposed to be selling flowers, but her message would be the same if she were a politician courting campaign contributors. Izz like this, guyz — you give to super PAC, I service you till next election. Then you give more. Happy Valentine’s Day night!

Posted in humor | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments