Mr. Mitt goes to Washington? Let’s hope not.

Posted on October 28, 2011 by oddmanout215

David Brooks and Mitt Romney should get married. Brooks is the foremost weasel among pundits. Romney is No. 1 among politicians, and that’s saying something.

Latest example: The pious Mr. Mitt has been telling a new lie each day concerning where he stands on workers’ bargaining rights, which is exactly what we should expect from a guy who made a fortune putting thousands out of work:

In June, Romney expressed his support for SB 5, a law pushed through by Ohio’s Republican legislature and Gov. John Kasich that curtails workers’ bargaining rights. (Among other things, the law bans public-employee unions from bargaining over health insurance and makes public-employee striking illegal). Romney wrote on Facebook on June 18: “My friends in Ohio are fighting to defend crucial reforms that the state has put in place to limit the power of union bosses and keep taxes low. I stand with John R. Kasich and Ohio’s leaders as they take on this important fight to get control of government spending.”

Then yesterday, when visiting an Ohio phone bank in support of SB 5, which Ohio voters have a chance to repeal in a November referendum, Romney refused to take a position, saying he was “not terribly familiar” with the ballot initiatives.

And today? Another 180. Romney told reporters that he supports Gov. Kasich “110 percent.”

Posted in David Brooks, economic collapse, Great Recession, mainstream media, Politics, The New Depression, unemployment | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

The class war started 30-some years ago, Frank

Posted on October 27, 2011 by oddmanout215

Frank Rich’s recent article in New York magazine included an excellent capsule history of the Depression-era Bonus Army and a good summary of how corporate welfare boosted G.E. and other corporate monsters, but the headline on the story — “The class war has begun” — is misleading.

The modern-era class war by the super-rich against the other 99 percent of Americans began in the Reagan years, and was being schemed back in the 1970s. The aspect of the class war Rich refers to is the recent backlash by the 99 percent against the privileged few who’ve been waging war on them for decades.

Rich correctly points to the cynicism of politicians regarding class war, an attitude they couldn’t sustain without a lot of help from the corporate media:

Politicians in either party, of course, never use the term “class warfare” to describe what’s going on in America, unless it’s Republican leaders accusing Obama of waging it every time he even mildly asserts timeless liberal bromides about taxing the rich. Nor do most politicians want to talk about the depth of the crisis in present-day capitalism, since to acknowledge its scale would only dramatize how little they intend to do about it.

Posted in Congress, Great Recession, mainstream media, Occupy Wall Street, Politics, The New Depression, unemployment, Wall Street | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Manhattan D.A. chips away at protesters’ rights

Posted on October 26, 2011 by oddmanout215

Last night Keith Olbermann asked something I’ve wondered about since the police crackdown on Occupy Wall Street protesters began several weeks ago with beatings and arrests in Manhattan, and mass arrest-by-trickery at the Brooklyn Bridge:

“At what point did we all decide that you had to have a permit that designated where you could and could not protest?”

“We” never made this decision, as Olbermann knew before asking the question. Rather, issuance of permits is a law enforcement tactic increasingly being used to undermine our First Amendment rights of assembly and petition for redress of grievances. The tactic is often predicated on the notion that public parks and plazas and streets aren’t really public at all, except during those hours when police choose to allow people to use them.

Olbermann’s guest, attorney Yetta Kurland, noted the illegal containment methods used on protesters at the Republican National Convention in 2004 as a turning point in NYPD efforts to chip away at protesters’ rights.

Olbermann reminded viewers that cops around the country are using trumped-up anti-camping regulations to attack or intimidate OWS protesters, and he noted that Manhattan D.A. Cyrus Vance Jr. has come up with a new dirty trick to discourage protests. Vance has offered to drop charges against 340 people arrested during OWS protests if they don’t get arrested again within the next six months.

In short, anyone who hasn’t noticed democracy in America is in big trouble is either an idiot, a recluse, or too corrupt to care.

Posted in economic collapse, Great Recession, mainstream media, Occupy Wall Street, The New Depression, unemployment | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Occupy newsrooms. Use all those empty desks.

Posted on October 25, 2011 by oddmanout215

For as long as I can remember Gannett was known as an outfit that skimped on news coverage by using skeleton crews of reporters and editors, for no other reason than to further enrich the owners of the Gannett company.

Good job by David Carr in nailing Gannett and reminding us that reporters and editors who work for the corporate media, whether they realize it or not, are in the same predicament as the unemployed and underpaid who have taken to the streets:

Almost two weeks ago, USA Today put its finger on why the Occupy Wall Street protests continued to gain traction.

“The bonus system has gone beyond a means of rewarding talent and is now Wall Street”s primary business,” the newspaper editorial stated, adding: “Institutions take huge gambles because the short-term returns are a rationale for their rich payouts. But even when the consequences of their risky behavior come back to haunt them, they still pay huge bonuses.”

Well thought and well put, but for one thing: If you were looking for bonus excess despite miserable operations, the best recent example I can think of is Gannett, which owns USA Today.

The week before the editorial ran, Craig A. Dubow resigned as Gannett”s chief executive. His short six-year tenure was, by most accounts, a disaster. Gannett”s stock price declined to about $10 a share from a high of $75 the day after he took over; the number of employees at Gannett plummeted to 32,000 from about 52,000, resulting in a remarkable diminution in journalistic boots on the ground at the 82 newspapers the company owns.

Carr recounts similar bad news about The Tribune Company, owned by the execrable Sam Zell, who put thousands of journalists out of work and ruined some top-tier newspapers through his greed and stupidity, meanwhile paying out huge bonuses to remaining managers.

The story is only slightly different in Philly, where I live, and all over the country. Newspapers are having a tough time transitioning to the digital age, and their worst enemies are their owners.

As for Carr’s semi-facetious notion of “occupying” the newsrooms… Well, there certainly would be plenty of room in most newsrooms these days if protesters chose to camp out in them.

Posted in economic collapse, Great Recession, humor, mainstream media, New York Times, Occupy Wall Street, Philadelphia, The New Depression, unemployment, Wall Street | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Will the circle jerk of one-percenters be broken?

Posted on October 24, 2011 by oddmanout215

Members of outlaw motorcycle gangs used to call themselves “one-percenters,” meaning they were in the tiny minority of Americans who are unabashed sociopaths. However, when we hear “one-percenters” these days, the reference usually is to establishment types who are obscenely wealthy and powerful and, arguably, much more sociopathic than outlaw bikers.

Here is economist Joseph Stiglitz describing the odious gang of one-percenters that runs our country:

The Supreme Court, in its recent Citizens United case, has enshrined the right of corporations to buy government, by removing limitations on campaign spending. The personal and the political are today in perfect alignment. Virtually all U.S. senators, and most of the representatives in the House, are members of the top 1 percent when they arrive, are kept in office by money from the top 1 percent, and know that if they serve the top 1 percent well they will be rewarded by the top 1 percent when they leave office. By and large, the key executive-branch policymakers on trade and economic policy also come from the top 1 percent. When pharmaceutical companies receive a trillion-dollar gift – through legislation prohibiting the government, the largest buyer of drugs, from bargaining over price – it should not come as cause for wonder. It should not make jaws drop that a tax bill cannot emerge from Congress unless big tax cuts are put in place for the wealthy. Given the power of the top 1 percent, this is the way you would expect the system to work.

Stiglitz ends his piece on an optimistic note. He reminds readers that one-percenters, in various countries and eras, often forget “their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live.” They become too complacently greedy and eventually spark a populist backlash. In contemporary America, the backlash may have begun with the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Posted in Congress, economic collapse, Goldman Sachs, Great Recession, Occupy Wall Street, Politics, The New Depression, unemployment, Wall Street | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Don’t go near the wood-er, quack quack

Posted on October 23, 2011 by oddmanout215

One of those bizarre amphibious “duck boats,” jammed with tourists, cruised past me on South Street today. The tour guide, using a mic and amp system, was shouting, “Pay attention, I’ll tell you how to speak Philadelphian. One, two, three… Yo cous, how ya doin’, wadda ya say?”

If I was on the boat I would have replied, “I’m OK, cous, but don’t go near the wood-er. I don’t wanna get drowned-ed.”

I know, bad joke. I’m just hoping the duck-boat people and the tugboat operators on the Delaware River have their act together, and I’m glad there haven’t been any more unfortunate accidents on land or in the water. One improvement — the tours aren’t half as annoying to locals as they used to be, now that passengers don’t receive their “duck call instruments” until after the rides are finished.

Posted in Philadelphia | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Ain’t nothin’ I wouldn’t do, sugar…

Posted on October 22, 2011 by oddmanout215

The perfect Saturday night song if you’re looking to sit at a bar and drown your lust for someone, or to start a fight if you can’t drink enough to drown it.

I don’t sit at bars anymore, but I often feel nostalgia for the self-lacerating insanity of the ritual described above. You know how it is with romantics.

Muddy Waters was one of the only vocalists I can think of who could do justice to “Just To Be With You,” recorded in 1956. Little Walter’s harmonica sounds like a giant keyboard in a juke joint the size of a cathedral.

The title of Scott Spencer’s novel A Ship Made of Paper — about crazy love, of course — is from this song:

On a ship that’s made of paper,
Oh yeah, I will sail the seven seas.
Fight a shark with a toothpick,
Crawl home to you on my knees.
There ain’t nothin’ I wouldn’t do, sugar,
Oh yeah, baby, just to be with you.

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

Has America begun to ‘get’ Bernie Sanders?

Posted on October 22, 2011 by oddmanout215

To understand how right-wing the major political parties in America are, it helps to read the foreign press. This from The Guardian:

… [Bernie Sanders’] beliefs… would fit comfortably in the middle left of Britain’s Labour party or Germany’s SPD. But it is impossible to over-state just how much of a political death sentence being called a “socialist” – never mind actually proudly proclaiming it – usually is in America…

After all, many elected Democrats shy away from the “liberal” label out of a fear of being demonised as left-wing extremists. Yet, even though political opponents have accurately called Sanders a “red,” and the New York Times once derided him as “a strange bird out of Vermont,” Sanders has flourished.

Indeed, he says his beliefs chime far more with Americans than people think. “All I can tell you is that in every poll I have seen if you ask people: do you think the wealthiest people in this country should pay their fair share of taxes? Then the answer is: yes, they should,” he said.

He rattled off a long list of other issues in the same way, posing a question on an issue and then answering it for the voters in the affirmative: cutting excessive military spending, not cutting social security, creating well-paying jobs in America, closing corporate tax loopholes.

This list sounds familiar to anyone who’s following the Occupy movement. No wonder The New York Times isn’t calling Bernie a “strange bird” anymore.

Posted in Congress, economic collapse, Great Recession, mainstream media, New York Times, Occupy Wall Street, Politics, The New Depression, unemployment, Wall Street | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

A word about our former torturer-in-chief

Posted on October 22, 2011 by oddmanout215

After posting about bringing Dick Cheney’s former ally and fellow war criminal to justice, I saw this item:

A raucous group of protesters gathered outside a Surrey, [British Columbia], hotel Thursday, hoisting colourful cardboard placards, shouting into megaphones and looking and sounding much like the masses who have converged for Occupy rallies in cities across Canada. But unlike their counterparts, this group had a single, united objective – to secure the arrest of George W. Bush.

… Amnesty International, along with several other peace and human rights organizations, contend Bush should be tried under Canadian and international law for war crimes, including torture. They point to what they call the illegal invasion of Iraq and his administration’s admitted use of techniques like waterboarding as evidence of crimes

Meanwhile, Toronto Star was bringing hopes of arresting Bush in Canada back down to earth:

No doubt many Canadians would be happy to see Bush hauled before a court. But it is up to the U.S. and its credible legal system, not the wider world, to deal with this matter. That’s codified in the Rome Statute that set up the International Criminal Court, and in the Convention against Torture.

If the U.S. is unwilling or unable, complainants have recourse to the ICC itself, even though the U.S. is not a party to the statute. The ICC can look, for example, into the dubious practice of “extraordinary rendition” if crimes were committed in countries that are party to the statute. Uninvolved parties such as Canada have no cause to get involved until every other avenue has been exhausted.

The Star has some of its facts straight, but I take issue with its use of the word “credible,” and its opinion that Canada “has no cause” to become involved. Bush canceled a trip to Switzerland last winter because he feared possible arrest. There is nothing credible about Barack Obama’s justice department or his decision to ignore his predecessor’s war crimes.

Bottom line: Lucky Libyan rebels — lucky because NATO fought their war for them — cornered Moammar Gaddafi in a drainpipe. American soldiers found Saddam Hussein in a spider hole. The ICC will never arrest Bush as he’s “clearing brush” in Crawford, TX, but maybe it can nab him as he steps off an airplane outside the United States. That goes for Bush’s shadow boss Cheney, too.

However, as John Wayne and Buddy Holly would say, “That’ll be the day.”

Posted in Iraq war, mainstream media, Obama, Politics | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Gaddafi nailed because he had no nukes

Posted on October 21, 2011 by oddmanout215

What is this thing called... realpolitik?

You may have read my bogus exclusive in August — a letter from Moammar Gaddafi to Dick Cheney, appealing for rescue from Libyan rebels who brought down Gaddafi’s government after British, French and American air forces, in classic colonialist fashion, crippled his army.

As you know, Gaddafi is now officially kaput. Apparently, his plea fell on deaf ears, even though he reminded Cheney in his letter that the two of them were former allies, as well as fellow war criminals and torture advocates, and should look out for one another when the chips were down.

Near the bitter end, when Gaddafi and his bodyguards was preparing to break out of Sirte, he sent one more dispatch to Cheney that my sources managed to intercept:

Dear Dick,

It looks as if the sand fleas will feast on me after all, and I suppose this is a good thing, under the circumstances. My Amazons have deserted me. I’m down to my last pinch of pharmaceutical meth, and sub-Saharan crank does not cut it, any more than this third-rate kif from Timbuktu.

I suppose you weighed all your options, to use the insipid American phrase, and decided to leave me twisting in the desert wind rather than come to my aid and answer all those awkward questions concerning our relationship, conducted mostly through your — how do you say it? — your point man, Richard Perle, who worked to help “burnish Libya’s image” back in 2006.

It is clear now that my big mistake was letting you and your British friends trick me into dismantling my nuclear weapons program in return for your false promise to supply me with “conventional and non-conventional military equipment.”

What the Prophet said is true: Do not trust fellow war criminals, even those who are your friends. The moral of this story, as you Americans like to say, is that only countries with nuclear stockpiles are truly safe from the crusaders. Our friend Kim Jong Il has starved millions but your infidel fighter-jet pilots steer clear of North Korea lest he incinerate your allies to the south. I guess I never quite got the gist of what you call realpolitik.

If you see Condi, say hello for me. I miss my Nubian queen even more than my Michael Jacksonian palace and wardrobe.

See you in hell.

Moammar

Posted in humor, Iraq war, mainstream media, New York Times, Politics | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments