How to negotiate like Neville Chamberlain

Posted on April 9, 2011 by oddmanout215

John Boehner’s target was $40 million in budget cuts. He got $38.5 million. And yet talking heads on MSNBC will almost surely try to spin the budget deal as some sort of victory for Democrats and working people, just as they routinely try to spin Barack Obama’s lack of spine as leadership.

Obama was loquacious in announcing a deal to avoid a government shutdown, and apparently oblivious to the damage his surrender on the budget issue might do regarding the likelihood of a genuine economic recovery.

How breathtakingly gullible, to have let himself play the Republicans’ game, conceding from the start that downsizing social programs while extending tax cuts for the rich somehow amounts to a step in the right direction. How foolish not to have framed the budget debate in Democratic terms — the terms used by ThinkProgress in summing up what the deal that was struck actually means in dollars:

…While they very nearly shut down the government to extract painful spending cuts, Republicans had already wiped out those spending cuts many times over with the revenue lost from extending the Bush tax cuts.

Why didn’t Obama repeatedly use the bully pulpit to criticize Republicans for insisting on cuts to social programs rather than an end to the Bush tax cuts? Has he invested so much in being the most reasonable guy in the room that he can’t speak plainly for what’s not only right but also logical? Must he always negotiate in the style of Neville Chamberlain?

It’s a gamble, I guess. By distancing himself from Democratic principles, Obama figures he’ll lure independents into his camp and win re-election. The irony is he might end up alienating independents as well as we Dems who feel betrayed by the ease with which he has broken most of the promises he made during the 2008 campaign. He is just as likely to be perceived as an ineffectual waffler as a great compromiser, especially if the economy is still in a rut next year.

And really, what are the the chances the economy will improve as a result of tax breaks for the rich and austerity measures for the poor and middle-class? And without the sort of sincere and focused effort to create jobs that Obama has avoided from the get-go?

Nobody likes a waffler — especially when his waffling, rightly or wrongly, appears to be contributing to the persistence of hard times.

Posted in Congress, economic collapse, Great Recession, mainstream media, Obama, Politics, unemployment | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

How do Paul Ryan do that voodoo he do?

Posted on April 8, 2011 by oddmanout215

The rich get richer, the poor get steamrolled. (tonywoodphoto)

I vote “yes” on Robert Reich’s call for higher taxes on the rich:

…Remarkably, taxes on the top have plummeted. From the 1940s until 1980, the top tax income tax rate on the highest earners in America was at least 70 percent. In the 1950s, it was 91 percent. Now it’s 35 percent. Even if you include deductions and credits, the rich are now paying a far lower share of their incomes in taxes than at any time since World War II… If the rich were taxed at the same rates they were half a century ago, they’d be paying in over $350 billion more this year alone, which translates into trillions over the next decade. That’s enough to accomplish everything the nation needs while also reducing future deficits.

I vote “no” on Paul Ryan’s far-right budget plan and wonder how many Americans understand that Ryan and his well-healed, whitebread homeys are trying to consign progressivism to the scrapheap of history. Their plans always boil down to this: The sky is falling and the only thing gonna save us are drastic sacrifices by the working class to the wealthy.

Economists such as Reich and Paul Krugman dismiss these right-wing con artists, but the mainstream news media — i.e., editors and reporters of the news, as opposed to the pundits — make no effort to separate the verities from the voodoo.

Here’s Krugman on Ryan’s contention that large tax cuts would increase revenue by almost $600 billion over the next 10 years:

A more sober assessment from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office tells a different story. It finds that a large part of the supposed savings from spending cuts would go, not to reduce the deficit, but to pay for tax cuts. In fact, the budget office finds that over the next decade the plan would lead to bigger deficits and more debt than current law.

You might think business reporters and analysts at the NY Times, Washington Post, et al., would be on the case, writing stories that either debunk or defend Ryan’s plan, an updated version of Reagan-era voodoo economics that helped get us in the mess we’re in today. But you would be wrong.

Posted in economic collapse, Great Recession, mainstream media, New York Times, Obama, Politics, taxes, unemployment, world-wide economy | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

The Obama trap is closing on progressives

Posted on April 6, 2011 by oddmanout215

We gotta get out of this place! (tonywoodphoto)

From the Animals:

My little girl you’re so young and pretty/And one thing I know is true/You’ll be dead before your time is due/Yes you will.

From Michael Gerson in The Washington Post:

Obama now has Republicans cornered in budget negotiations. By accepting $33 billion in cuts for the remainder of 2011, Obama has taken the middle ground and exploited a major division within the Republican coalition. The administration has transformed a weak record into a strong political position. What made this possible was Obama’s willingness to betray progressives in Congress even before the budget conflict began. In February, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had criticized spending reductions in the range of $30 billion as “draconian” and “unworkable.” Now that figure is a floor. The left has already lost the budget battle — though the right has not yet won it. Obama clearly takes liberals for granted, shoring up his own fiscal reputation at their expense. Given their quiescence, it seems a good strategy.

And that’s the way it is, as Cronkite used to say. Barack Obama concedes $30 billion without being asked, then tacks on $3 billion more. Republican leaders might have to accept his generous offer, which includes cuts to programs that help the working poor, students and just about everyone else who isn’t wealthy. This along with his cooperation in extending bonus tax cuts for the wealthy that increase the deficit by $858 billion.

Damn, he sure did outfox those guys!

Questions for fellow quiescent, taken-for-granted progressives — Who’s cornered, the Republicans or us? How did we end up in this dreary little right-of-center prison, with a president who has repeatedly pretended compromise and surrender mean the same thing? And how do we get out of this place?

Posted in economic collapse, Great Recession, mainstream media, Obama, Politics, taxes, unemployment | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

On the road to Johnny Brenda’s w/ Nicos Gun

Posted on April 5, 2011 by oddmanout215

You’re achy and pissed when you pull into Roadkill, AL, or wherever, and sick of looking at each other, of the smell of each other in that RV you’re rattling around in. But South by Southwest in Austin was sweet and so were the other gigs, and you haven’t starved yet, and Joe Bob and the boys at the Waffle House were nothing like the extras in Easy Rider.

The good write-ups help, including one by Bruce Warren of WXPN.

But four hours sleep every night sucks. It feels good to swing east and then north like Sherman’s rearguard, through Atlanta and the Carolinas, then up to D.C. and to Philly for a show tonight at Johnny Brenda’s, where the pretty machines will know all your songs.

This gig won’t quite end the tour, but you’ll be back in Philly again long before you play the Roots Picnic on June 4. Happy trails.

Nicos Gun with Morning Teleportation 9pm April 5 at Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 Frankford Ave., Philadelphia, (215) 739-9684. Admission $10.

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

To NY Times, economic rut is recovery

Posted on April 4, 2011 by oddmanout215

Nicely detailed, but what about the big picture? (tonywoodphoto)

The lead paragraphs and headline — “Job Growth Suggests Resilience of U.S. Recovery” — of a recent New York Times article suggests, Herbert Hoover-style, that prosperity is just around the corner. The real story is buried deep in the text:

… Yet March’s numbers also offered more than a few cautionary signs that the national economy was not cured of all its ills. The ranks of Americans who have been without a job for 27 weeks or more remain painfully high, at more than six million. And the labor force has shrunk steadily since the beginning of the recession, to a point that just 64.2 percent of adults are either in the work force or looking for a job. That is the lowest labor participation rate in a quarter-century…

The average workweek, too, was unchanged, at 34.3 hours, and average hourly earnings remained static. Such indicators point to an economy with much slack demand, hints of deflation and little upward pressure on wages. Real earnings, the Brookings Institution noted on Friday, have fallen 1.1 percent in the last year…

Another question is what the midterm future augurs. Will jobs continue to expand through the spring, and with enough vigor — 300,000 a month, say — to substantially reduce the unemployment rate? ...If the economy adds 200,000 jobs a month, it will be 2019 before it reaches the employment rate that preceded this recession.

Bill Keller, editor of The Times, equates his style of reporting with “objectivity.” It’s really just spin. Yes, hiring was up in March, but the increase is a blip compared to the number of jobs lost since 2008, and real earnings continue to fall. In what way could these facts indicate resilience or recovery to anyone trying to honestly gauge where the country is heading?

The editors and managers of The Times and the other corporate-owned media outlets seem to think their mission is to put a new coat of paint on the bug-infested shack we call the economy. They want us to believe the shack is a palace that’s slowly being restored.

These people do good work when they remember their role should be to dig for and present information to counter the lies in which all governments traffic. However, they usually fall down on the big stories, from Iraq to our endless recession, and end up spinning for the corporate-political establishment. Too bad for the rest of us.

Posted in economic collapse, Great Recession, Iraq war, mainstream media, New York Times, Politics, unemployment | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Snooki hits back at critic of her Rutgers gig

Posted on April 3, 2011 by oddmanout215

Who's this Tony Morrison guy? Snooki and Rutgers students want to know.

From nj.com:

What’s worth more? A commencement speech by a Nobel-winning novelist? Or a pair of Q&A sessions with one of reality television’s biggest stars? At Rutgers University, Snooki edges out Toni Morrison by a couple thousand dollars. Last month, Rutgers officials said they had booked Morrison — author of “Beloved,” “Song of Solomon” and other novels — to speak… at commencement in May. She will be paid $30,000… Rutgers students said they had also made a big-name booking. Snooki… appeared at two question-and-answer sessions at the Livingston Student Center in Piscataway. Her fee: $32,000.

An nj.com reader’s posted response to the story:

When asked what her advice was for Rutgers students, [Snooki] said: “Study hard, but party harder.” Great advice. No wonder today’s college graduates can barely spell.

A reply to the reader that I drafted for Snooki, in response to the nj.com reader:

Here’s one word I can spell — L-O-O-S-E-R! You’re just jealous because everybody likes me, ’cause I go through the boyfriend break-ups and the friend stuff and the fights and stuff like that, and ’cause I’m like, relate-able, even though I don’t sing or any of that stuff. You want to know why I’m relate-able? It’s because I say what’s on my mind, which is nothing, and most people can relate ’cause they’ve got nothing on their minds, and nothing relates to nothing, if you know what I mean. And what’s it to you that Rutgers college paid me more than this Tony Morrison guy that writes books that nobody reads? Do they even make books these days except for loosers like you? If this Morrison guy is so smart, how come his agent only got him 30K? It’s ’cause I’m relate-able and he’s not, end of story.

Posted in arts, fiction, NJ | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

This weekend — the Phillies or ‘The Loser’

Posted on April 2, 2011 by oddmanout215

From the late Austrian Thomas Bernhard’s novel The Loser, in which a fictional version of Glenn Gould has studied piano with two would-be virtuosos, Wertheimer and the narrator, who have both quit playing because they were psychologically damaged by the reality of Gould’s superior talent:

[The Goldberg Variations] were originally composed to delight the soul and almost two hundred and fifty years later they had killed a hopeless person, i.e., Wertheimer… If Wertheimer hadn’t walked past room thirty-three on the second floor of the Mozarteum twenty-eight years ago at precisely four in the afternoon, he wouldn’t have hanged himself twenty-eight years later in Zizers bei Chur, I thought. Wertheimer’s fate was to have walked past room thirty-three in the Mozarteum at the precise time Glenn Gould was playing the so-called aria in that room. Regarding this event Wertheimer reported to me that he stopped at the door of room thirty-three, listening to Gould play until the end of the aria. Then I understood what shock is, I thought now.

Bernhard, a first-rate piano player before he quit to write, presents a narrator who’s clearly in conflict with himself, although it would be a mistake to call him confused. Guilt-ridden and appalled by Wertheimer’s suicide, the narrator rants against his late friend, himself, and even his hero Gould.

The relationship of the three main characters is rehashed and rewoven in a 170-page high-wire act that mimics the way a Baroque composer reconciles various themes, over and over in the same piece. The narrator seems to identify as closely with “the loser” W. as with Gould, and this feels right. Who among us hasn’t felt like W. at some point? Should we stop playing baseball, and even watching it, because we can’t pitch like the Phillies’ Roy Halladay? Smash our guitars because we aren’t Jimi Hendrix?

There are amusingly nasty put-downs of just about everything, but also the sense that Bernhard, through his narrator, is making fun of his own cynicism. He’s like the narrator in Dostoevsky’s Notes From Underground, a volatile mix of grandiosity and self-loathing, disgusted by human folly, trying hard to run from the fact that he’s human, too. The only thing he feels comfortable praising is the (arguably) cold perfection of Bach’s music as played by Gould.

Read The Loser if you’ve ever groaned at the ugly landscape of mainstream culture — I never want to hear the name Snooki again, I’m out of here — then laughed at the absurdity of trying to separate yourself from it.

Or maybe you’d better go to a ballgame instead. The Phils are back, and they’re playing at home this weekend.

Posted in arts, autobiography, fiction | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Correction, DN — Corbett wields the chainsaw

Posted on April 1, 2011 by oddmanout215

How to send the wrong message regarding Corbett's budget cuts

Here’s Josh Cornfield of the Philadelphia Daily News following up on reaction to the newspaper’s cheesy, Photoshopped front page photo on March 31:

The Philadelphia School District apparently loved the Daily News’ cover yesterday as much as district parents and students will love the massive cuts coming their way. From its Twitter account, @PhillyEducation, the district spent hours blasting the Daily News for the image of Superintendent Arlene Ackerman holding a chainsaw, claiming that the photo illustration and “Chainsaw Massacre” headline promoted violence…

Apparently, it’s more fun to tweet about pretend links between satirical images and school violence than about the 163 school police officers the district threatened to fire on Wednesday. Or the threat to eliminate instrumental music, summer school, sports, teachers, counselors – or more than $600 million in services… The district didn’t stop spending taxpayer resources on excoriating the Daily News there, however. It went a step further, sending two paid staffers to interview Will Jordan, an associate professor of urban education at Temple University, about the cover image…

A paid staffer also edited the video and posted it to the district’s YouTube channel. All of those manpower hours had to be enough to pay for at least a couple of football helmets – you know, to keep students safe from the impending onslaught of chainsaw-wielding high-school students…

Maybe you mean well, Josh, but your newspaper’s approach to this story is a good example of the mainstream media’s uncanny knack for focusing on the wrong villains. Ackerman is a lousy superintendent, maybe even a petty tyrant. But she’s not the architect of the so-called austerity measures designed to kill public schools, cripple unions and bring down wages. It’s PA Gov. Tom Corbett, the crooked old white guy, who should be wielding the chainsaw on your cover.

Sure, the school district people are tone-deaf to satire, and they wasted time and money attacking the DN. But this was only after the DN wasted time and money placing its primary focus on Ackerman instead of Corbett and the Republican legislature — the people dead-set on privatizing our schools.

It’s not enough for you guys to explain the story on an inside page — Oh, by the way, Ackerman would rather not be slashing programs, but she will have no choice thanks to Corbett. You should be hitting people over the head with this fact, so that they’re conscious of who the enemy is and how they can fight back.

Don’t worry, I get it — the DN is a tabloid and you want to piss people off, it’s good for sales. But why deflect anger and blame from Corbett by misrepresenting Ackerman’s role? Why turn one Philly faction against another instead of trying to unite Philadelphians against the corporate-owned skunk in Harrisburg whose politics are the antithesis of everything big-city residents value?

Get your act together, DN. Philly is fighting for its life.

Posted in Great Recession, livable cities, mainstream media, Philadelphia, Politics, taxes, unemployment | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Fox News VP: Sure, I lied about Obama

Posted on April 1, 2011 by oddmanout215

In case you wondered why Roger Ailes and his motley crew are barred from Canadian TV outlets, here’s this from Media Matters:

In newly uncovered audio, a Fox News executive boasts that he lied repeatedly during the closing days of the 2008 presidential campaign when he speculated on-air “about whether Barack Obama really advocated socialism.” Speaking in 2009 on board a pricey Mediterranean cruise sponsored by a right-wing college, Fox Washington managing editor Bill Sammon described his attempts the previous year to link Obama to “socialism” as “mischievous speculation.” Sammon, who is also a Fox News vice president, acknowledged that “privately” he had believed that the socialism allegation was “rather far-fetched.”

This is an extraordinary admission, even for a cynical spin doctor who thought the speech he made to fellow troglodytes at sea would never be seen by us ungodly advocates of spreading the wealth. A network VP, no less! It’s a reminder that mainstream news, as passive and shifty as it is, could be worse — would be worse if the other networks stooped to Joseph Goebbels-level propaganda instead of the more subtle versions of misinformation they feed to us. Except, that is, when they’re selling us a new war, or pretending the economy is recovering, or…

But you get my drift – Fox is the worst.

Footnote: To get a better idea of what a skunk Sammon is, see Inside Job, which explains how deeply Lawrence Summers — ex-chief of Obama's National Economic Council — was involved in the corrupt practices that crashed the economy in 2008. Only a super-capitalist or a total dunderhead would have brought Summers into the White House in the wake of the Wall Street disaster. And only a guy like Sammon, a specialist in big lies, would accuse a Wall Street lackey like Obama of being a socialist.

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Joe Bageant walked it as he talked it

Posted on March 31, 2011 by oddmanout215

Joe Bageant, the self-described “redneck socialist” writer who died this week at age 64, enjoyed exploring the great divide between the working class and the limousine liberal establishment. Sometimes he seemed one of the few progressive-minded author/social critics who even acknowledged this divide.

Bageant didn’t have the high visibility of the mainstream pundits who opine from safe, upper-middle class perches about the state of the nation (David Brooks, you weasel!), but he clicked with readers who loved his bemused disdain for American culture and his talent for tempering scathing critiques with smart, ornery jokes and curmudgeonly concern for the poor and dispossessed.

The other day, while writing about the bankers who were rewarded huge sums for grand theft and incompetence, I thought of this from Bageant’s essay “America: Y Ur Peeps B So Dumb”:

Cultural stupidity might not be so bad, were it not self-reproducing and viral, and prone to place stupid people in charge. All of us have, at some point, looked at a boss and asked ourselves how such a numb-nuts could end up in charge of the joint.

In my own field, the book biz, the top hucksters in sales and marketing, car salesman with degrees, are put in charge of publishing the national literature. Similarly, ex-Pentagon generals segue from killing brown babies in Iraq into university presidents and CEOs. Conversely, business leaders such as Donald Rumsfeld who fancy themselves as battlefield commanders and imagine their employees as troops to be “deployed,” find themselves happily farting behind Pentagon desks. On the strength of having mistaken Sun Tzu’s The Art of War for a business text, they get selected by equally delusional national leaders to make actual war on behalf of the rest of us.

But the most widespread damage is done at more mundane operational levels of the American empire, by clones of the over promoted asshole in the corner office where you work. At least one study demonstrated that random selection for corporate promotions offset the effect significantly. Research again confirms what is common knowledge around every workplace water cooler in the country.

Bageant’s writings are medicine for cultural stupidity and a respite from the world of corner offices and over-promoted assholes. Read Deer Hunting With Jesus: Dispatches from America’s Class War if you haven’t already, and Rainbow Pie: A Redneck Memoir, and the many essays on Bageant’s website. It’s a real shame there won’t be any more of them.

Posted in arts, Politics | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment