I just happened to be musing about hairy chests, with an old friend, when I remembered seeing the movie "Georgy Girl," as a young girl, which starred Alan Bates. This was one of Bates's less memorable roles in a luminous acting career which included "Gosford Park," "Women in Love," "Hamlet," and "Nijinsky," but it was quite a game changer for me.
You may recall "Georgy Girl" contains a few scenes with a shirtless, hirsute Alan Bates who was quite dashing. I always had a real hankering for hairy chests, even as a fifteen year old whose favorite pastimes were reading "Story of O,"and her parents' marriage manuals. I was just discovering the first rumblings of what could later only be called full blown lust.
After developing an immense crush on Bates, I dashed off a note to him in care of his agent saying only: "I like your hairy chest. The next time you come to New York, why don't we have dinner." I also managed to squeeze in the fact that I was only fifteen.
A few months later, I got a note back on his agent's stationery. It was hilarious, and said something like "Mr. Bates was very flattered by your letter, and your kind offer to have dinner with him the next time he's in New York, but he could get arrested for going out with you." The person who wrote, and/or typed it must have been laughing her socks off.
I couldn't help but think then, as I do now, what a gracious, generous, and classy thing it was to even respond, and what a sense of humor! It says a lot about Alan Bates, the man.
Amazingly, Bates would have turned 76 on Feb. 17th. He passed away two months before his 70th birthday. Rest in peace, Alan Bates, and know that your hairy chest has found a permanent home in my memory.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
A Rating System for Apologies?
Tiger Woods managed to take center stage today. He even made the stock market blink.
Yes, the all too public apologia of this professional golfer was even able to upstage the Justice Department's seismic announcement that it's going to let former Justice Department lawyers and architects of the "torture memos," Jay Bybee and John Yoo, walk away from criminal indictment.
Moreover, the longest mea culpa in recent memory also deflected media attention away from alleged nuclear proliferation in Iran, the ravages of an earthquake in Haiti, and the upcoming presidential announcement on health care reform.
Frankly, anyone able to watch more than four minutes of the live footage deserves my vote about as much as any other Roman at the Colisseum, but where are the Christians? Oh, that's right, they're busy loading their guns, and preparing for rifle practice, I mean, midterm elections.
Arguably, the only thing more absurd than Woods's completely unnecessary mass media act of self-flagellation may have been watching cable news pundits rate his apology.
One couldn't help but imagine what might have happened if the judges, and juries who presided over infamous Salem Bay witch trials had a rating system for confessions of a bunch of confused women who merely wanted to say whatever they had to, so they could go home to their families. It might not have been necessary to burn witches at the stake, after all. Instead, the witches would simply self-immolate in a flash of mortification that might almost make us all believe they really did die for our sins.
Yes, the all too public apologia of this professional golfer was even able to upstage the Justice Department's seismic announcement that it's going to let former Justice Department lawyers and architects of the "torture memos," Jay Bybee and John Yoo, walk away from criminal indictment.
Moreover, the longest mea culpa in recent memory also deflected media attention away from alleged nuclear proliferation in Iran, the ravages of an earthquake in Haiti, and the upcoming presidential announcement on health care reform.
Frankly, anyone able to watch more than four minutes of the live footage deserves my vote about as much as any other Roman at the Colisseum, but where are the Christians? Oh, that's right, they're busy loading their guns, and preparing for rifle practice, I mean, midterm elections.
Arguably, the only thing more absurd than Woods's completely unnecessary mass media act of self-flagellation may have been watching cable news pundits rate his apology.
One couldn't help but imagine what might have happened if the judges, and juries who presided over infamous Salem Bay witch trials had a rating system for confessions of a bunch of confused women who merely wanted to say whatever they had to, so they could go home to their families. It might not have been necessary to burn witches at the stake, after all. Instead, the witches would simply self-immolate in a flash of mortification that might almost make us all believe they really did die for our sins.
Bill Moyers and Michael Winship on American Justice
What Are We Bid for American Justice?
By Bill Moyers and Michael Winship
That famous definition of a cynic as someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing has come to define this present moment of American politics.
No wonder people have lost faith in politicians, parties and in our leadership. The power of money drives cynicism deep into the heart of every level of government. Everything - and everyone - comes with a price tag attached: from a seat at the table in the White House to a seat in Congress to the fate of health care reform, our environment and efforts to restrain Wall Street's greed and prevent another financial catastrophe.
Our government is not broken; it's been bought out from under us, and on the right and the left and smack across the vast middle more and more Americans doubt representative democracy can survive the corruption of money.
Last month, the Supreme Court carried cynicism to new heights with its decision in the Citizens United case. Spun from a legal dispute over the airing on a pay-per-view channel of a right-wing documentary attacking Hillary Clinton during the 2008 presidential primaries, the decision could have been made very narrowly. Instead, the conservative majority of five judges issued a sweeping opinion that greatly expands corporate power over our politics.
Never mind that in at least two separate polls an overwhelming majority of Americans from both political parties say they want no part of the Court's decision; they want even more limits on the power of money in elections. But candidates and their campaign consultants are gearing up to exploit the Court's gift in the fall elections.
Just this week, that indispensable journalistic Web site Talking Points Memo reported that K&L Gates, an influential Washington lobbying firm, is alerting corporate clients on how to use trade associations like the Chamber of Commerce as pass-throughs to dump unlimited amounts of cash directly into elections. They can advocate or oppose a candidate right up to Election Day, while keeping a low profile to prevent "public scrutiny" and bad press coverage. And media outlets already are lickingtheir chops at the prospect of all that extra money to be spent buying
airtime - as much as an additional $300 million dollars. That's not even counting production and post-production costs of campaign ads, which are considerable. A bad situation just got worse.
If you want to know just how much worse, look to the decision's potential impact on our court system, where integrity, independence and fair play count the most when it comes to preserving faith in our system. It's as susceptible to the lure of corporate wealth as the executive and legislative branches are.
Ninety-eight percent of all the lawsuits in this country take place in the state courts. In 39 states, judges have to run for election - that's more than 80 percent of the state judges in America.
The Citizens United decision makes those judges who are elected even more susceptible to the corrupting influence of cash, for many of their decisions in civil cases directly affect corporate America, and a significant amount of the money judges raise for their campaigns comes from lobbyists and lawyers.
In the words of Charles W. Hall, a spokesman for the non-partisan, judicial watchdog group Justice at Stake, "Corporate bottom lines are not affected by whether a bank robber gets 10 or 20 years in prison. The bottom lines are affected however by whether a large scale lawsuit is upheld or overturned."
During the 1990s, candidates for high court judgeships in states around the country and the parties that supported them raised $85 million dollars for their campaigns. Since the year 2000, the numbers have more than doubled to over $200 million.
The nine justices currently serving on the Texas Supreme Court have raised nearly $12 million in campaign contributions. The race for a seat on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court last year was the most expensive judicial race in the country, with more than $4.5 million spent by the Democrats and Republicans. Now, with the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, corporate money's muscle just got a big hypodermic full of
steroids.
As Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in his 90-page Citizens United dissent, "At a time when concerns about the conduct of judicial elections have reached a fever pitch... the Court today unleashes the floodgates of corporate and union general treasury spending in these races."
States that elect their judges, he said, "after today, may no longer have the ability to place modest limits on corporate electioneering even if they believe such limits to be critical to maintaining the integrity of their judicial systems."
No wonder that legal experts, including former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (the only living current or former Supreme Court member to have been an elected state court judge), have called for states with judicial elections to switch to a system of merit selection.
Judges would be appointed but possibly subject to "retention elections" in which voters can simply vote thumbs up or down as to whether jurists are qualified to remain on the bench.
Until such changes are made, the temptations of corporate cash mean that in those states where judicial elections still prevail there hangs a crooked sign on every courthouse reading, "Justice for Sale."
Bill Moyers is managing editor and Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program Bill Moyers Journal, which airs Friday night on PBS.
Check local airtimes
By Bill Moyers and Michael Winship
That famous definition of a cynic as someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing has come to define this present moment of American politics.
No wonder people have lost faith in politicians, parties and in our leadership. The power of money drives cynicism deep into the heart of every level of government. Everything - and everyone - comes with a price tag attached: from a seat at the table in the White House to a seat in Congress to the fate of health care reform, our environment and efforts to restrain Wall Street's greed and prevent another financial catastrophe.
Our government is not broken; it's been bought out from under us, and on the right and the left and smack across the vast middle more and more Americans doubt representative democracy can survive the corruption of money.
Last month, the Supreme Court carried cynicism to new heights with its decision in the Citizens United case. Spun from a legal dispute over the airing on a pay-per-view channel of a right-wing documentary attacking Hillary Clinton during the 2008 presidential primaries, the decision could have been made very narrowly. Instead, the conservative majority of five judges issued a sweeping opinion that greatly expands corporate power over our politics.
Never mind that in at least two separate polls an overwhelming majority of Americans from both political parties say they want no part of the Court's decision; they want even more limits on the power of money in elections. But candidates and their campaign consultants are gearing up to exploit the Court's gift in the fall elections.
Just this week, that indispensable journalistic Web site Talking Points Memo reported that K&L Gates, an influential Washington lobbying firm, is alerting corporate clients on how to use trade associations like the Chamber of Commerce as pass-throughs to dump unlimited amounts of cash directly into elections. They can advocate or oppose a candidate right up to Election Day, while keeping a low profile to prevent "public scrutiny" and bad press coverage. And media outlets already are lickingtheir chops at the prospect of all that extra money to be spent buying
airtime - as much as an additional $300 million dollars. That's not even counting production and post-production costs of campaign ads, which are considerable. A bad situation just got worse.
If you want to know just how much worse, look to the decision's potential impact on our court system, where integrity, independence and fair play count the most when it comes to preserving faith in our system. It's as susceptible to the lure of corporate wealth as the executive and legislative branches are.
Ninety-eight percent of all the lawsuits in this country take place in the state courts. In 39 states, judges have to run for election - that's more than 80 percent of the state judges in America.
The Citizens United decision makes those judges who are elected even more susceptible to the corrupting influence of cash, for many of their decisions in civil cases directly affect corporate America, and a significant amount of the money judges raise for their campaigns comes from lobbyists and lawyers.
In the words of Charles W. Hall, a spokesman for the non-partisan, judicial watchdog group Justice at Stake, "Corporate bottom lines are not affected by whether a bank robber gets 10 or 20 years in prison. The bottom lines are affected however by whether a large scale lawsuit is upheld or overturned."
During the 1990s, candidates for high court judgeships in states around the country and the parties that supported them raised $85 million dollars for their campaigns. Since the year 2000, the numbers have more than doubled to over $200 million.
The nine justices currently serving on the Texas Supreme Court have raised nearly $12 million in campaign contributions. The race for a seat on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court last year was the most expensive judicial race in the country, with more than $4.5 million spent by the Democrats and Republicans. Now, with the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, corporate money's muscle just got a big hypodermic full of
steroids.
As Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in his 90-page Citizens United dissent, "At a time when concerns about the conduct of judicial elections have reached a fever pitch... the Court today unleashes the floodgates of corporate and union general treasury spending in these races."
States that elect their judges, he said, "after today, may no longer have the ability to place modest limits on corporate electioneering even if they believe such limits to be critical to maintaining the integrity of their judicial systems."
No wonder that legal experts, including former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (the only living current or former Supreme Court member to have been an elected state court judge), have called for states with judicial elections to switch to a system of merit selection.
Judges would be appointed but possibly subject to "retention elections" in which voters can simply vote thumbs up or down as to whether jurists are qualified to remain on the bench.
Until such changes are made, the temptations of corporate cash mean that in those states where judicial elections still prevail there hangs a crooked sign on every courthouse reading, "Justice for Sale."
Bill Moyers is managing editor and Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program Bill Moyers Journal, which airs Friday night on PBS.
Check local airtimes
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
A Tale of Two Cities -- Take 2
It's only about an hour drive, on a good day, from Braintree to Cambridge, Massachusetts, but they are worlds apart. And, it's not so much a question of geography, but of race.
In late July,2009, you'll recall, a distinguished professor of African-American studies at one of the oldest, and best universities in America, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., was arrested, and detained by Cambridge police for several hours after they were called to investigate what looked like a home robbery in an affluent residential part of the city. Before leaving campus, Dr. Gates apparently lost his house keys, something that happens to most of us at one time or another, and only aroused suspicion when he tried to force his way into his own house. A neighbor spotted him, and called police.
The Harvard professor was arrested, once inside and after producing irrefutable proof of identity including his driver's license, and Harvard I.D. card, according to Boston.com. The arresting officer booked Gates for disorderly conduct after "exhibiting loud and tumultous behavior" which allegedly involved screaming and name-calling.
Now fast rewind to 1986, and have a look at the treatment another professor, Amy Bishop, received at the hands of Braintree police who showed up at her family residence after as a youngster she shot, and killed her brother. According to the AP, there were no ballistics tests done after the shooting, and more than a week elapsed before authorities even questioned members of Bishop's family about the murder.
The death of Amy Bishop's 18 year old brother, Seth, was ruled accidental, the case was closed, and the police file mysteriously vanished into thin air. It is only in the wake of this University of Alabama biology professor's recent killing spree, that claimed the lives of three of her colleagues, that anyone has called for an investigation into the circumstances surrounding her brother's death.
What's more, not only did Bishop put a bullet in her brother's chest, she then went to a local car dealership, pointed the shotgun at employees, and demanded a getaway car for which she was caught, but never charged.
When they were finally questioned by police about the shooting, the Bishop family backed their daughter up when she said she was only trying to learn how to load a shotgun. Mission accomplished. The families of three of her colleagues will attest to that.
What we learn from the incidents in Braintree and Cambridge is that prosecution is selective.
Braintree's current district attorney now says that even if the shooting had been accidental, there was probable cause to arrest Bishop in 1986, and charge her with assault with a dangerous weapon, carrying a dangerous weapon, and possession of a firearm. Why was the case summarily dropped, and the file lost?
And, a larger question is -- how far have we come, really, when a Harvard professor, who happens to be black, loses his keys and is arrested in his own house, after producing documentation proving that he is the home owner, is held for several hours, and only released when it is discovered that not only is he a distinguished professor and scholar, but a friend of a sitting president? Think about the fact that Professor Gates's arrest, and detention, comes nearly a quarter of a century after a young woman shoots and kills her brother, under suspicious circumstances, then terrorizes a car dealership, for which she is neither charged nor investigated.
Who would think, even for an instant, that had Henry Louis Gates, Jr. been a white man trying to gain access to his home in a quiet, residential part of Cambridge that he would have been humiliated by being booked, and having to serve several hours at his local police station?
Those who talk about racial profiling are right, but there is another factor at play here which is that not only race, but socioeconomic status played a role in the instant vindication of a young woman who clearly grew up to think that she could get away with anything, and she would have had it not been for her university's refusal to grant her tenure.
The sooner the criminal justice system faces up to the egregious, and grossly unfair arrest and conviction rates of people of color as compared with their white middle class counterparts, the better.
What happened that day in the picket fence house of a suburb 75 miles outside of Boston is no more representative of that town than the arrest of a Harvard professor on charges of house burglary represents life in Cambridge. This is not about geography, but preconceptions on the part of law enforcement, and the courts. Such prejudice needs to be scrupulouslyexamined, and quickly overcome.
In late July,2009, you'll recall, a distinguished professor of African-American studies at one of the oldest, and best universities in America, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., was arrested, and detained by Cambridge police for several hours after they were called to investigate what looked like a home robbery in an affluent residential part of the city. Before leaving campus, Dr. Gates apparently lost his house keys, something that happens to most of us at one time or another, and only aroused suspicion when he tried to force his way into his own house. A neighbor spotted him, and called police.
The Harvard professor was arrested, once inside and after producing irrefutable proof of identity including his driver's license, and Harvard I.D. card, according to Boston.com. The arresting officer booked Gates for disorderly conduct after "exhibiting loud and tumultous behavior" which allegedly involved screaming and name-calling.
Now fast rewind to 1986, and have a look at the treatment another professor, Amy Bishop, received at the hands of Braintree police who showed up at her family residence after as a youngster she shot, and killed her brother. According to the AP, there were no ballistics tests done after the shooting, and more than a week elapsed before authorities even questioned members of Bishop's family about the murder.
The death of Amy Bishop's 18 year old brother, Seth, was ruled accidental, the case was closed, and the police file mysteriously vanished into thin air. It is only in the wake of this University of Alabama biology professor's recent killing spree, that claimed the lives of three of her colleagues, that anyone has called for an investigation into the circumstances surrounding her brother's death.
What's more, not only did Bishop put a bullet in her brother's chest, she then went to a local car dealership, pointed the shotgun at employees, and demanded a getaway car for which she was caught, but never charged.
When they were finally questioned by police about the shooting, the Bishop family backed their daughter up when she said she was only trying to learn how to load a shotgun. Mission accomplished. The families of three of her colleagues will attest to that.
What we learn from the incidents in Braintree and Cambridge is that prosecution is selective.
Braintree's current district attorney now says that even if the shooting had been accidental, there was probable cause to arrest Bishop in 1986, and charge her with assault with a dangerous weapon, carrying a dangerous weapon, and possession of a firearm. Why was the case summarily dropped, and the file lost?
And, a larger question is -- how far have we come, really, when a Harvard professor, who happens to be black, loses his keys and is arrested in his own house, after producing documentation proving that he is the home owner, is held for several hours, and only released when it is discovered that not only is he a distinguished professor and scholar, but a friend of a sitting president? Think about the fact that Professor Gates's arrest, and detention, comes nearly a quarter of a century after a young woman shoots and kills her brother, under suspicious circumstances, then terrorizes a car dealership, for which she is neither charged nor investigated.
Who would think, even for an instant, that had Henry Louis Gates, Jr. been a white man trying to gain access to his home in a quiet, residential part of Cambridge that he would have been humiliated by being booked, and having to serve several hours at his local police station?
Those who talk about racial profiling are right, but there is another factor at play here which is that not only race, but socioeconomic status played a role in the instant vindication of a young woman who clearly grew up to think that she could get away with anything, and she would have had it not been for her university's refusal to grant her tenure.
The sooner the criminal justice system faces up to the egregious, and grossly unfair arrest and conviction rates of people of color as compared with their white middle class counterparts, the better.
What happened that day in the picket fence house of a suburb 75 miles outside of Boston is no more representative of that town than the arrest of a Harvard professor on charges of house burglary represents life in Cambridge. This is not about geography, but preconceptions on the part of law enforcement, and the courts. Such prejudice needs to be scrupulouslyexamined, and quickly overcome.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Columbus ...
"Christopher Columbus, as everyone knows, is honored by posterity because he was the last to discover America."
~ James Joyce (1882-1941)
special thanks to Philip Proctor for the quote
~ James Joyce (1882-1941)
special thanks to Philip Proctor for the quote
Friday, February 12, 2010
By Michael Winship
From the Annals of Sno-Cone Science
By Michael Winship
There's a vintage Bob and Ray radio sketch in which Bob plays "Mr. Science," a parody of TV's "Mr. Wizard." He's trying to explain to his young protégé Sandy "the miracle of gas refrigeration."
"Doesn't it seem paradoxical to you that a refrigerator is made cold by a flame?" Mr. Science asks.
Sandy exclaims, "Holy cats! Wait 'til I tell the gang at school that! I thought it was made cold by the ice cubes, Mr. Science!"
Sandy's slippery grasp of physics and Mr. Science's increasingly convoluted explanations characterize the debate over climate change that was taking place in Washington and the media this week. As the capital and much of the Eastern seaboard were digging themselves out from two big snow events, climate change deniers were pointing to the frozen tundra on the Potomac as evidence that global warming is a fraud.
Virginia's Republican Party used the blizzards to put out a snarky ad attacking two of the state's Democratic congressmen who voted for the cap-and-trade bill last year: "Tell them how much global warming you get this weekend," the spot chortled. "Maybe they'll come help you shovel."
Right-wing Senator Jim DeMint sent out a Twitter tweet: "It's going to keep snowing until Al Gore cries 'Uncle!'" And the daughter and grandkids of Republican Senator James Inhofe built a six-foot igloo on Capitol Hill with signs announcing "Al Gore's New Home" and "Honk if you [heart] Global Warming." Once again, the GOP mines comedy gold.
Granted, debating global warming while stuck in a snowdrift can seem a little counterintuitive, especially if you tend to willfully deny scientific evidence and prefer to limit your knowledge of the cold to such things as sticking your tongue on the schoolyard flagpole and enjoying the occasional Sno-Cone. And scientists didn't do themselves any favors when the phrase "global warming" was coined. Compared to "climate change," it's much too easy to misinterpret, intentionally or not. (As some have suggested, "global weirding" might be more accurate and helpful.)
In truth, and to get way too basic, warmer air holds more moisture and when temperatures get colder it falls from the sky as a lot of snow. Not to mention that short term weather phenomena, like blizzards, don't necessarily reflect overall climate trends which are measured over decades and more.
And by the way, as the progressive Web site Media Matters reports, if we can momentarily shift our East Coast-centric eyes from our own icy weather, note that they're having trouble getting enough snow at the Olympics in Vancouver and Rio de Janeiro is wilting from its worst heat wave in half a century.
One big fact that convinces me of the reality of climate change is the seriousness with which America's defense and intelligence agencies are taking it as a worldwide threat. The American Security Project, a Washington think tank, reported last month that the Central Intelligence Agency has relaunched a program "to share surveillance and other data with scientists monitoring climate change," including satellite photos. And in September, the CIA announced it was creating a Center on Climate Change and National Security that will study "the effect environmental factors can have on political, economic, and social stability overseas."
The Chief of Naval Operations has established "Task Force Climate Change" to "assess the Navy's preparedness to respond to emerging requirements, and to develop a science-based timeline for future Navy actions regarding climate change." Navy Secretary Ray Mabus has set the year 2020 as a deadline for the Navy cutting its use of fossil fuels by half.
On February 1, the Pentagon issued its Quadrennial Defense Review, which establishes defense strategy and priorities and evaluates potential international risks. It cites intelligence assessments that "climate change could have significant geopolitical impacts around the world, contributing to poverty, environmental degradation and the further weakening of fragile governments. Climate change will contribute to food and water scarcity, will increase the spread of disease and may spur or exacerbate mass migration.
"While climate change alone does not cause conflict, it may act as an accelerant of instability or conflict, placing a burden to respond on civilian institutions and militaries around the world."
Among its other findings, the review cites a 2008 National Intelligence Council report that more than 30 U.S. military installations were "already facing elevated levels of risk from rising sea levels. DoD's operational readiness hinges on continued access to land, air, and sea training and test space. Consequently, the department must complete a comprehensive assessment of all installations to assess the potential impacts of climate change on its missions and adapt as required."
Consider yourself warned and, one hopes, suitably chastened. As Sandy tells Mr. Science, "I'm never going to throw an ice cube from a moving car again. Boy, Smokey the Bear's got enough trouble as it is!"
Precisely.
Michael Winship is senior writer for Bill Moyers Journal on PBS. Check local listings for time
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
The Rain
When the rain comes
they hide their heads.
They are not
always sure
it will
last.
(c) Jayne Lyn Stahl
they hide their heads.
They are not
always sure
it will
last.
(c) Jayne Lyn Stahl
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
In Another Life
At some
point in
another life
we will
meet and
we will
kiss
again
as if
for
the
first
time.
© Jayne Lyn Stahl
point in
another life
we will
meet and
we will
kiss
again
as if
for
the
first
time.
© Jayne Lyn Stahl
Monday, February 08, 2010
How Much Is Too Much Information?
Okay, here we go again, another politician has been sacrificed at the altar of public opinion.
And, on a day when Jenny Sanford, wife of Appalachian Mountain Trail's very own South Carolina governor, Mark Sanford, appeared on "Larry King Live" to detail the detumescence of her marriage, and bolster her book sales came word that the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor of Illinois dropped out of the race on Superbowl Sunday after scandal broke about his alleged altercation, and abuse of a former girlfriend.
Evidently, extramarital, and domestic transgressions are a bipartisan affair.
Democrat Scott Lee Cohen, an Illinois businessman, lost his bid for his first elected post as word broke that he was arrested five years ago for allegedly shoving then-girlfriend, Amanda Eneman, into a wall, and threatening her with a knife. He was charged with domestic abuse, and a trial date was set to which his girlfriend was a no show, so charges were dropped. Repeat, charges were dropped.
This is by no means meant to minimize domestic violence, but only to point out that it was the Illinois Democratic Party, terrified by the idea of losing the midterm election, that pulled the plug on Cohen's campaign which is less than a week in the making. This rapid political demise was hastened by head honchos in the Illinois Democratic Party who are in a hurry to "find a strong replacement."
But, whose background is so lily white, to borrow a phrase, that it won't falter when subjected to intense, and intensifying scrutiny?
One has only to look at the parade of politicos who have been rolled over the coals over the past few years, a list that includes former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, aforementioned South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, former New York governor Eliot Spitzer, and a mounting campaign to unseat current New York governor Paterson. Whatever happened to "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone?"
In this age of instant information, the larger question is -- how much information is too much? It was lying before a Grand Jury about an extramarital dalliance in the White House that caused the last impeachment of a U.S. president, Bill Clinton, but lying to Congress about weapons of mass destruction didn't prevent another president, George W. Bush, from a dignified retirement.
There's nothing wrong with information, per se, but why would anybody care to know the name Rielle Hunter, or to see photographs of a former presidential candidate's love child? Does it make us feel better to witness a moral lynching?
To add insult to injury, Cohen's ex-girlfriend, a woman once charged with prostitution, actually had the chutzpah to issue a statement through her attorney in which she said that the Illinois nominee for lieutenant general "isn't fit to hold any public office." Is Ms. Eneman any more fit to judge his worthiness for public office?
More importantly, how did this country allow a tabloid mentality to metastasize such that we can no longer distinguish those who seek, or hold political office from the lotharios of dimestore novels?
If things continue at this rate, we will have begun our descent into demonocracy.
Bottom line: when boundaries between what is private and what isn't dissolve, there can be no serious discussion about free speech.
What Democrats are inaugurating now is nothing less than campaign pre-emption. A concept which was previously applied to the battlefield by the Bush administration, pre-emptive strikes, is now being applied to the campaign trail.
Forcing candidates to step down is the political equivalent of hysterical pregnancy. Fear of losing is all too often what is most responsible for lack of success.
And, on a day when Jenny Sanford, wife of Appalachian Mountain Trail's very own South Carolina governor, Mark Sanford, appeared on "Larry King Live" to detail the detumescence of her marriage, and bolster her book sales came word that the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor of Illinois dropped out of the race on Superbowl Sunday after scandal broke about his alleged altercation, and abuse of a former girlfriend.
Evidently, extramarital, and domestic transgressions are a bipartisan affair.
Democrat Scott Lee Cohen, an Illinois businessman, lost his bid for his first elected post as word broke that he was arrested five years ago for allegedly shoving then-girlfriend, Amanda Eneman, into a wall, and threatening her with a knife. He was charged with domestic abuse, and a trial date was set to which his girlfriend was a no show, so charges were dropped. Repeat, charges were dropped.
This is by no means meant to minimize domestic violence, but only to point out that it was the Illinois Democratic Party, terrified by the idea of losing the midterm election, that pulled the plug on Cohen's campaign which is less than a week in the making. This rapid political demise was hastened by head honchos in the Illinois Democratic Party who are in a hurry to "find a strong replacement."
But, whose background is so lily white, to borrow a phrase, that it won't falter when subjected to intense, and intensifying scrutiny?
One has only to look at the parade of politicos who have been rolled over the coals over the past few years, a list that includes former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, aforementioned South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, former New York governor Eliot Spitzer, and a mounting campaign to unseat current New York governor Paterson. Whatever happened to "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone?"
In this age of instant information, the larger question is -- how much information is too much? It was lying before a Grand Jury about an extramarital dalliance in the White House that caused the last impeachment of a U.S. president, Bill Clinton, but lying to Congress about weapons of mass destruction didn't prevent another president, George W. Bush, from a dignified retirement.
There's nothing wrong with information, per se, but why would anybody care to know the name Rielle Hunter, or to see photographs of a former presidential candidate's love child? Does it make us feel better to witness a moral lynching?
To add insult to injury, Cohen's ex-girlfriend, a woman once charged with prostitution, actually had the chutzpah to issue a statement through her attorney in which she said that the Illinois nominee for lieutenant general "isn't fit to hold any public office." Is Ms. Eneman any more fit to judge his worthiness for public office?
More importantly, how did this country allow a tabloid mentality to metastasize such that we can no longer distinguish those who seek, or hold political office from the lotharios of dimestore novels?
If things continue at this rate, we will have begun our descent into demonocracy.
Bottom line: when boundaries between what is private and what isn't dissolve, there can be no serious discussion about free speech.
What Democrats are inaugurating now is nothing less than campaign pre-emption. A concept which was previously applied to the battlefield by the Bush administration, pre-emptive strikes, is now being applied to the campaign trail.
Forcing candidates to step down is the political equivalent of hysterical pregnancy. Fear of losing is all too often what is most responsible for lack of success.
L'esprit de l'amour
When I was a young girl, a high school student in my late teens, I would take the Trailways bus to Woodstock, New York, and there I met the most enchanting fellow. His name was David, and he was a student at the Art Student's League. We met through a friend of mine, Sandy, who had a huge crush on him.
I don't think David and I exchanged more than a dozen words once in front of Sandy's cottage, and another time when we ran into each other on Tinker Street in town. A very bizarre thing happened, something that has not happened often since. I couldn't get him out of my mind.
On the ride home to Queens, David's face would appear in a mass of clouds out the window, and his long blonde hair, and slender body would emerge in my dreams. My homeroom periods were spent immersed in desire.
After a few weeks, I called the Art Student's League and asked to speak to him. As it happens, David was there, and he came to the phone.
"David, this is Jayne, do you remember me?"
He laughed, and said "Yes, yes, of course."
"I want to come and live with you," I announced. There was about a 30 second delay, and he then said;
"When are you coming? I'll pick you up at the station."
So, I packed my little overnight bag, and left a poem on the pillow, "Telegram," telling my parents that I was off on another adventure, and entreating them not to "take it personally" if I need to escape from time to time.
David and I spent weeks together. We didn't talk. We didn't have to. We made love inside, outside, morning, noon, and night. When we awoke, he knew if I wanted coffee, and vice versa. We were like Adam and Eve in the garden before language, before corruption.
Summer wore on, and I had to go back to school, so I sadly left David who I was to see one more time, the following year, in Woodstock. He looked at me, smiled, and said "I could pick up where we left off, right here, right now, as though time doesn't exist." And indeed it doesn't--not then, and not now.
I don't think David and I exchanged more than a dozen words once in front of Sandy's cottage, and another time when we ran into each other on Tinker Street in town. A very bizarre thing happened, something that has not happened often since. I couldn't get him out of my mind.
On the ride home to Queens, David's face would appear in a mass of clouds out the window, and his long blonde hair, and slender body would emerge in my dreams. My homeroom periods were spent immersed in desire.
After a few weeks, I called the Art Student's League and asked to speak to him. As it happens, David was there, and he came to the phone.
"David, this is Jayne, do you remember me?"
He laughed, and said "Yes, yes, of course."
"I want to come and live with you," I announced. There was about a 30 second delay, and he then said;
"When are you coming? I'll pick you up at the station."
So, I packed my little overnight bag, and left a poem on the pillow, "Telegram," telling my parents that I was off on another adventure, and entreating them not to "take it personally" if I need to escape from time to time.
David and I spent weeks together. We didn't talk. We didn't have to. We made love inside, outside, morning, noon, and night. When we awoke, he knew if I wanted coffee, and vice versa. We were like Adam and Eve in the garden before language, before corruption.
Summer wore on, and I had to go back to school, so I sadly left David who I was to see one more time, the following year, in Woodstock. He looked at me, smiled, and said "I could pick up where we left off, right here, right now, as though time doesn't exist." And indeed it doesn't--not then, and not now.
Friday, February 05, 2010
Michael Winship on lobbyists
Lobbyists Retreat but Never Surrender
By Michael Winship
George Washington's birthday is approaching and with it will come the attendant mythology, hatchet and cherry tree, wooden teeth, throwing a silver dollar across the Potomac River - or the Rappahannock.
Of course, as the old joke goes, a dollar went a lot further then. Today, if you tried to hurl a silver dollar across the Potomac, chances are some member of Congress would snatch it in flight like oneof those nature film grizzly bears grabbing a salmon in mid-leap.
And the more likely person doing the throwing would be a lobbyist, tossing coins in the air to keep the playful legislator's attention. The other day, the non-partisan Center for ResponsivePolitics reported that more than 15,600 companies spent at least $3.2 billion on federal lobbying last year. Five hundred thirty-five members of the House and Senate, more than 13,000 registered lobbyists in DC -
you do the math.
This week, White House Special Counsel Norm Eisen blogged about President Obama's plans to further crack down on lobbyists by updating the Lobbying Disclosure Act and getting Congress to mandate "low-dollar limits on the contributions lobbyists may bundle or make to candidates for federal office," bundling being that insidious practice by which you raise a lot of money by hitting up a number of people for contributions and "bundling" their donations together.
Good luck with that, Norm. As we've seen, lobbyists are brilliantly devious at figuring out ways into the inner sanctums, and whoever's behind the door tends to welcome them with open arms, as long as they've arrived with the secret password - "Cash."
Example: last weekend, both Democratic and Republican members of Congress held retreats, ostensibly to go away some place and sagely contemplate their navels, discussing issues and plotting strategy. Guess who else was there?
The House Republican Caucus chose to stay near Washington at the Renaissance Baltimore Harborplace Hotel, all the easier for lobbyists to make a quick sprint up Interstate 95 and pitch woo. Among those addressing the Caucus were President Obama - you've seen the video of his give-and-take with them last Friday - and the ubiquitous former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, the GOP equivalent of a rash that won't go away.
The meeting was organized by the Congressional Institute, which describes itself as "a not-for-profit corporation dedicated to helping Members of Congress better serve their constituents and helping their constituents better understand the operations of the national legislature." It holds seminars for legislators and their staffs, publishes a handbook on floor procedure and sponsors the annual Congressional Art Competition.
The reality, as the Center for Media and Democracy's SourceWatch Web site reports, is that the Congressional Institute is "funded by corporate contributions and run by top Republican lobbyists." Twelve of its 14 board members are registered lobbyists, including its chair, Daniel Meyer of The Duberstein Group, a lobby firm founded by former Reagan chief of staff Ken Duberstein; vice chair Barbara Morris-Lent,
who has been a consultant to Verizon and is the wife of former Republican Congressman Norman Lent; and its secretary Gary Andres, a columnist for Rupert Murdoch's right-wing Weekly Standard and vice president of public policy and research for the lobby company Dutko Worldwide. Many of them are former Republican congressional staff members; two of them worked for ex-Speaker Gingrich.
A list of the Congressional Institute's financial contributors reads like a Who's Who of corporate America: among them have been General Motors, Lockheed Martin, Time Warner, UPS, Merck and tobacco giant Altria.
Lee Fang, a researcher for the progressive Center for American Progress Action Fund, paid a visit on the Republicans at their Baltimore hotel. In the time before Congressional Institute representatives told him to scram or face arrest, he found out quite a lot.
The aforementioned Dan Meyer was on his way to the retreat - his Duberstein clients include Goldman Sachs, BP, HealthNet and AHIP, the health insurance industry trade group that fought tooth and nail against the public option in the health care fight.
Also in attendance, according to Fang, was Institute board member Michael Johnson. A lobbyist at the OB-C Group, Johnson "touts himself as a 'Republican heavyweight' whose firm represents the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, JPMorgan Chase, and the health insurance giant WellPoint." And as he was pointed to the exit, Fang spotted John Sampson, chief lobbyist for Microsoft.
Meanwhile, Democrats chose to bask in sunnier climes, and some select lobbyists decided to grab their towels and Jamba Juice and enjoy the balmy weather with them.
A dozen senators headlined the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee's winter retreat at a Ritz Carlton resort in Miami Beach, a cozy little hideaway with 375 guest rooms, "sumptuous" marble baths, spa and a $2 million dollar art collection.
The senators included DSCC chair Robert Menendez, Carl Levin, Frank Lautenberg, Claire McCaskill and Bernie Sanders. Riding in the wake of their surf were 108 lobbyists - special guests who shared meals, receptions and "informal conversations" with the legislators.
According to the Web site Politico.com, among those attending were "top lobbying officials for many of the industries Democrats regularly attack: Represented were the American Bankers Association, the tobacco company Altria, the oil company Marathon, several drug manufacturers, the defense contractor Lockheed, and most of the large independent lobbying firms."
The price of admittance wasn't released but the maxiumun contribution to the DSCC for similar events is $30,000 a head. Interesting when compared to recent remarks by Senator Menendez. Politico's Ben Smith quoted a January 27 Menendez press release: "In the upcoming elections, voters will face a choice between Republicans who are standing with Wall Street fat cats, bankers and insurance companies - or Democrats who are working hard to clean up the mess we inherited by putting the people's interests ahead of the special interests"
Hearing all this makes me think we should stage a national intervention and ship the entire 111th Congress off to a different kind of retreat, a sort of political rehab facility. They would be kept isolated from lobbyists and special interests for as many weeks as it takes for them to be weaned from money and pork and made to pay attention to the needs of their constituents - and the nation.
There would be lectures, motivational speakers, readings from the Federalist Papers, and daily screenings of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." And emblazoned across its entryway would be a denunciation of money and politics, Thomas Jefferson's 1816 battle cry to "crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
I know it's just a fantasy, but I feel better already.
Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program
Bill Moyers Journal, which airs Friday night on PBS.
Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog at
www.pbs.org/moyers.
By Michael Winship
George Washington's birthday is approaching and with it will come the attendant mythology, hatchet and cherry tree, wooden teeth, throwing a silver dollar across the Potomac River - or the Rappahannock.
Of course, as the old joke goes, a dollar went a lot further then. Today, if you tried to hurl a silver dollar across the Potomac, chances are some member of Congress would snatch it in flight like oneof those nature film grizzly bears grabbing a salmon in mid-leap.
And the more likely person doing the throwing would be a lobbyist, tossing coins in the air to keep the playful legislator's attention. The other day, the non-partisan Center for ResponsivePolitics reported that more than 15,600 companies spent at least $3.2 billion on federal lobbying last year. Five hundred thirty-five members of the House and Senate, more than 13,000 registered lobbyists in DC -
you do the math.
This week, White House Special Counsel Norm Eisen blogged about President Obama's plans to further crack down on lobbyists by updating the Lobbying Disclosure Act and getting Congress to mandate "low-dollar limits on the contributions lobbyists may bundle or make to candidates for federal office," bundling being that insidious practice by which you raise a lot of money by hitting up a number of people for contributions and "bundling" their donations together.
Good luck with that, Norm. As we've seen, lobbyists are brilliantly devious at figuring out ways into the inner sanctums, and whoever's behind the door tends to welcome them with open arms, as long as they've arrived with the secret password - "Cash."
Example: last weekend, both Democratic and Republican members of Congress held retreats, ostensibly to go away some place and sagely contemplate their navels, discussing issues and plotting strategy. Guess who else was there?
The House Republican Caucus chose to stay near Washington at the Renaissance Baltimore Harborplace Hotel, all the easier for lobbyists to make a quick sprint up Interstate 95 and pitch woo. Among those addressing the Caucus were President Obama - you've seen the video of his give-and-take with them last Friday - and the ubiquitous former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, the GOP equivalent of a rash that won't go away.
The meeting was organized by the Congressional Institute, which describes itself as "a not-for-profit corporation dedicated to helping Members of Congress better serve their constituents and helping their constituents better understand the operations of the national legislature." It holds seminars for legislators and their staffs, publishes a handbook on floor procedure and sponsors the annual Congressional Art Competition.
The reality, as the Center for Media and Democracy's SourceWatch Web site reports, is that the Congressional Institute is "funded by corporate contributions and run by top Republican lobbyists." Twelve of its 14 board members are registered lobbyists, including its chair, Daniel Meyer of The Duberstein Group, a lobby firm founded by former Reagan chief of staff Ken Duberstein; vice chair Barbara Morris-Lent,
who has been a consultant to Verizon and is the wife of former Republican Congressman Norman Lent; and its secretary Gary Andres, a columnist for Rupert Murdoch's right-wing Weekly Standard and vice president of public policy and research for the lobby company Dutko Worldwide. Many of them are former Republican congressional staff members; two of them worked for ex-Speaker Gingrich.
A list of the Congressional Institute's financial contributors reads like a Who's Who of corporate America: among them have been General Motors, Lockheed Martin, Time Warner, UPS, Merck and tobacco giant Altria.
Lee Fang, a researcher for the progressive Center for American Progress Action Fund, paid a visit on the Republicans at their Baltimore hotel. In the time before Congressional Institute representatives told him to scram or face arrest, he found out quite a lot.
The aforementioned Dan Meyer was on his way to the retreat - his Duberstein clients include Goldman Sachs, BP, HealthNet and AHIP, the health insurance industry trade group that fought tooth and nail against the public option in the health care fight.
Also in attendance, according to Fang, was Institute board member Michael Johnson. A lobbyist at the OB-C Group, Johnson "touts himself as a 'Republican heavyweight' whose firm represents the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, JPMorgan Chase, and the health insurance giant WellPoint." And as he was pointed to the exit, Fang spotted John Sampson, chief lobbyist for Microsoft.
Meanwhile, Democrats chose to bask in sunnier climes, and some select lobbyists decided to grab their towels and Jamba Juice and enjoy the balmy weather with them.
A dozen senators headlined the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee's winter retreat at a Ritz Carlton resort in Miami Beach, a cozy little hideaway with 375 guest rooms, "sumptuous" marble baths, spa and a $2 million dollar art collection.
The senators included DSCC chair Robert Menendez, Carl Levin, Frank Lautenberg, Claire McCaskill and Bernie Sanders. Riding in the wake of their surf were 108 lobbyists - special guests who shared meals, receptions and "informal conversations" with the legislators.
According to the Web site Politico.com, among those attending were "top lobbying officials for many of the industries Democrats regularly attack: Represented were the American Bankers Association, the tobacco company Altria, the oil company Marathon, several drug manufacturers, the defense contractor Lockheed, and most of the large independent lobbying firms."
The price of admittance wasn't released but the maxiumun contribution to the DSCC for similar events is $30,000 a head. Interesting when compared to recent remarks by Senator Menendez. Politico's Ben Smith quoted a January 27 Menendez press release: "In the upcoming elections, voters will face a choice between Republicans who are standing with Wall Street fat cats, bankers and insurance companies - or Democrats who are working hard to clean up the mess we inherited by putting the people's interests ahead of the special interests"
Hearing all this makes me think we should stage a national intervention and ship the entire 111th Congress off to a different kind of retreat, a sort of political rehab facility. They would be kept isolated from lobbyists and special interests for as many weeks as it takes for them to be weaned from money and pork and made to pay attention to the needs of their constituents - and the nation.
There would be lectures, motivational speakers, readings from the Federalist Papers, and daily screenings of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." And emblazoned across its entryway would be a denunciation of money and politics, Thomas Jefferson's 1816 battle cry to "crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
I know it's just a fantasy, but I feel better already.
Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program
Bill Moyers Journal, which airs Friday night on PBS.
Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog at
www.pbs.org/moyers.
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Question of the Day
Now that the Supreme Court has granted First Amendment rights to corporations, will they soon be able to marry?
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
James Joyce
James Joyce would be 128 years old today. Joyce, as you know, was the author of "Ulysses," which is widely considered the greatest novel in the English language.
A little known fact about JJ. He was fascinated by the movie business, and was a big fan of Charlie Chaplin. And, in his last years, he even tried his hand at writing a screenplay.
Given the latest announcement that "Avatar" has been nominated as best picture, if he could talk today, Mr. Joyce might say: "I'm glad I didn't live long enough to write for Hollywood."
A little known fact about JJ. He was fascinated by the movie business, and was a big fan of Charlie Chaplin. And, in his last years, he even tried his hand at writing a screenplay.
Given the latest announcement that "Avatar" has been nominated as best picture, if he could talk today, Mr. Joyce might say: "I'm glad I didn't live long enough to write for Hollywood."
Monday, February 01, 2010
Special Needs Students in Higher Education
An issue that isn't being discussed as much as it should be, especially at the community college level, is what happens with students who were identified as "special ed" in public school, and now find themselves in the college system? I'm speaking specifically of those students who are considered SED, or Severely Emotionally Disturbed?
Many developmental, i.e., remedial reading and writing classes at the junior college level have a number of students who were in special education classes in public school. Often, there's no clue except when the students hand the instructor a progress report, often at the end of the semester. Understandably, student privacy is paramount, and they should not be coerced to identify themselves to an educator as special needs, and thus be subject to preconceived, and biased notions of what those needs are.
But, to place a teacher, whose background is in literature and grammar, and who has never taken a class in Psychology, in a classroom with SED students, is to invite a potential disaster at worst, or to deprive the student of the sensitivity to his needs he has come to expect.
Who's being protected by this policy of secrecy about student's needs---the student? teacher? or the school district? Clearly, mandating teacher preparation in special education, at the university level, would not be cost-effective, but what is the alternative? At best, an unfulfilling, and frustrating experience for the student, class, and teacher, and at worst, potentially jeopardizing school safety.
Yes, of course, these students have as much a right to go to college as any other student has, but is it in their best interest to be taught by instructors who have no background, and no clue, about their circumstances? Moreover, don't educators have rights, too?
An inordinately high percentage of crimes on campus are committed by students in the so-called developmental classes, but what percentage of crimes on campus are committed by students who were identified as "severely emotionally disturbed" in public schools? Further, if a violent act is committed by a student on an educator, isn't the school district liable for not informing the teacher that he was at risk?
This is an issue that needs to be addressed before something tragic happens again. Students who are at risk put everyone else at risk, and they need to be taught by those who have the appropriate training. Bottom line: if we have special education classes in public school, then we must have a cognate system for the colleges, or there will be many more Virginia Techs
At a time when the U.S. has beefed up its defense budget, and is performing active interventions in the domestic affairs of foreign countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen under the rubric of "national security," the funds allocated to education pale by comparison. The 2011 federal budget provides for ten times as much for the Pentagon than for the Department of Education.
There can be no greater threat to our national security than underprepared educators, and underfunded schools
Many developmental, i.e., remedial reading and writing classes at the junior college level have a number of students who were in special education classes in public school. Often, there's no clue except when the students hand the instructor a progress report, often at the end of the semester. Understandably, student privacy is paramount, and they should not be coerced to identify themselves to an educator as special needs, and thus be subject to preconceived, and biased notions of what those needs are.
But, to place a teacher, whose background is in literature and grammar, and who has never taken a class in Psychology, in a classroom with SED students, is to invite a potential disaster at worst, or to deprive the student of the sensitivity to his needs he has come to expect.
Who's being protected by this policy of secrecy about student's needs---the student? teacher? or the school district? Clearly, mandating teacher preparation in special education, at the university level, would not be cost-effective, but what is the alternative? At best, an unfulfilling, and frustrating experience for the student, class, and teacher, and at worst, potentially jeopardizing school safety.
Yes, of course, these students have as much a right to go to college as any other student has, but is it in their best interest to be taught by instructors who have no background, and no clue, about their circumstances? Moreover, don't educators have rights, too?
An inordinately high percentage of crimes on campus are committed by students in the so-called developmental classes, but what percentage of crimes on campus are committed by students who were identified as "severely emotionally disturbed" in public schools? Further, if a violent act is committed by a student on an educator, isn't the school district liable for not informing the teacher that he was at risk?
This is an issue that needs to be addressed before something tragic happens again. Students who are at risk put everyone else at risk, and they need to be taught by those who have the appropriate training. Bottom line: if we have special education classes in public school, then we must have a cognate system for the colleges, or there will be many more Virginia Techs
At a time when the U.S. has beefed up its defense budget, and is performing active interventions in the domestic affairs of foreign countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen under the rubric of "national security," the funds allocated to education pale by comparison. The 2011 federal budget provides for ten times as much for the Pentagon than for the Department of Education.
There can be no greater threat to our national security than underprepared educators, and underfunded schools
Sunday, January 31, 2010
January 31st
will always be a special day for me as this is my father's birthday. He would have been 92 today, and he is missed always.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
How About a Corporate Gains Tax?
During his State of the Union speech on Tuesday, the President called for reducing the capital gains tax on small businesses to the delight of many Republicans in the audience who recognize that this is a baby step toward eliminating the capital gains tax on big business, too.
And, in light of last month's landmark Supreme Court decision granting First Amendment rights to corporations, why not also impose the kind of tax burden on corporations those earning $250,000 a year or more currently face.
Given the gargantuan, egregious profits of Goldman Sachs, AIG, and banks, why not inaugurate a similar program to the one in the UK here, and introduce a corporate gains tax? The U.K has been taxing corporate profits since about 1965, and given the President's announcement that reducing the deficit is as important as job creation, taxing corporate gains might be a way to accomplish both--reduce the deficit, and have capital to give the states for job expansion.
There is, of course, already a corporate income tax on the federal and state level that is somewhere between 15 - 39% on the federal level. Income tax does not take into account what part of that income is not used to cover expenses, or profit. Should the United States choose to tax profits, too, at the rate of 25% which is less than the U.K., but more than what is in place now, deficit-reduction might be well on its way.
One has only to look at the mind boggling bonuses financial institutions in this country have given to their chief executives to see that, while it's not perfect, the math is certainly better than a miniscule tax to recover some TARP money. Bonuses Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and others have paid their executives pale in comparison to the record profits oil companies have made since the U.S. invaded Iraq.
Reportedly, in 2002, worldwide profits of the five largest oil companies were $35 billion. But, in 2008 alone, Exxon Mobil posted the biggest annual profit in American history---$45 billion. The most profitable year for an oil company in Iraq produced $95 billion in revenue, according to Global Policy Forum and, over time, some estimates for oil profits in Iraq range anywhere from $600 billion to $9 trillion. A corporate gains tax of 15% on oil companies alone could make a substantial dent in the $1.4 trillion deficit.
But, the oil companies are a good place to start. Let's not end there. The idea is to reset the tax structure, not temporarily but permanently, so that the highest taxation falls upon the biggest shoulders, those of the major corporations, and the wealthiest Americans.
All this means is that now that the highest court in the land has decided to blur constitutional distinctions between personhood and banksterhood, why not extend that to the realm of taxation by holding corporations accountable for their profiteering in the same way we hold individuals responsible for the acquisition of assets?
And, what is recovered from the revenue generated by a corporate gains tax can go to subsidize affordable housing, end hunger, expand Medicaid and Medicare, and guarantee each and every American a living wage
And, in light of last month's landmark Supreme Court decision granting First Amendment rights to corporations, why not also impose the kind of tax burden on corporations those earning $250,000 a year or more currently face.
Given the gargantuan, egregious profits of Goldman Sachs, AIG, and banks, why not inaugurate a similar program to the one in the UK here, and introduce a corporate gains tax? The U.K has been taxing corporate profits since about 1965, and given the President's announcement that reducing the deficit is as important as job creation, taxing corporate gains might be a way to accomplish both--reduce the deficit, and have capital to give the states for job expansion.
There is, of course, already a corporate income tax on the federal and state level that is somewhere between 15 - 39% on the federal level. Income tax does not take into account what part of that income is not used to cover expenses, or profit. Should the United States choose to tax profits, too, at the rate of 25% which is less than the U.K., but more than what is in place now, deficit-reduction might be well on its way.
One has only to look at the mind boggling bonuses financial institutions in this country have given to their chief executives to see that, while it's not perfect, the math is certainly better than a miniscule tax to recover some TARP money. Bonuses Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and others have paid their executives pale in comparison to the record profits oil companies have made since the U.S. invaded Iraq.
Reportedly, in 2002, worldwide profits of the five largest oil companies were $35 billion. But, in 2008 alone, Exxon Mobil posted the biggest annual profit in American history---$45 billion. The most profitable year for an oil company in Iraq produced $95 billion in revenue, according to Global Policy Forum and, over time, some estimates for oil profits in Iraq range anywhere from $600 billion to $9 trillion. A corporate gains tax of 15% on oil companies alone could make a substantial dent in the $1.4 trillion deficit.
But, the oil companies are a good place to start. Let's not end there. The idea is to reset the tax structure, not temporarily but permanently, so that the highest taxation falls upon the biggest shoulders, those of the major corporations, and the wealthiest Americans.
All this means is that now that the highest court in the land has decided to blur constitutional distinctions between personhood and banksterhood, why not extend that to the realm of taxation by holding corporations accountable for their profiteering in the same way we hold individuals responsible for the acquisition of assets?
And, what is recovered from the revenue generated by a corporate gains tax can go to subsidize affordable housing, end hunger, expand Medicaid and Medicare, and guarantee each and every American a living wage
Friday, January 29, 2010
An Immodest Proposal
An Obama administration insider told the Washington Post today that "New York is out" for the trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the so-called mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.
The decision, by feds, to try Mohammed and his other friends currently held at Gitmo in a federal court as opposed to a military commission is a good thing, and those who say that as long as he receives due process, the venue doesn't matter are right.
In fact, why bother with a venue altogether? Why not just put Khalid Sheik Mohammed in the next spaceship headed for Mars. Upon arrival, he can be ejected, dumped, and left to fend for himself on the red planet where he may find himself as breakfast, lunch, or dinner for hungry aliens.
And, if the mission goes well, it might even make sense to ship the other "enemy combatants" to Mars, too.
The notion of receiving a fair trial appears to be a rather antiquated one. Saddam Hussein would agree. It's not like Mohammed has claimed he's innocent. To the contrary, he flaunts his guilt.
Everybody knows how this movie is going to end, so why waste taxpayer money, why not imbue the phrase "extraordinary rendition" with a whole new meaning by sending avowed terrorists into outer space? To borrow a word the president seemed to enjoy during his first State of the Union speech, this gesture may even act as a deterrent, and enhance national security.
After all, if you knew the sentence for committing a terrorist act is being shipped off to another planet, and dumped, you might think twice before blowing yourself up. Hell, you might even think once before blowing yourself up.
Besides, nobody really expects to see a trial in a federal courthouse featuring the mastermind of 9/11 to be anything more than a malformed media circus that will achieve nothing other than boosting ratings on television news networks.
Of course, some Martians might complain that we're turning their planet into a dumping ground for earth's misfits, but then there will be proof positive that life on Mars does exist. Some environmentalists here on earth might also argue against polluting Mars with our moral carcinogens, and kamikaze criminals, but isn't this what Great Britain did when it emptied its jails onto the Mayflower, and we don't seem to be any worse for it, do we?
The decision, by feds, to try Mohammed and his other friends currently held at Gitmo in a federal court as opposed to a military commission is a good thing, and those who say that as long as he receives due process, the venue doesn't matter are right.
In fact, why bother with a venue altogether? Why not just put Khalid Sheik Mohammed in the next spaceship headed for Mars. Upon arrival, he can be ejected, dumped, and left to fend for himself on the red planet where he may find himself as breakfast, lunch, or dinner for hungry aliens.
And, if the mission goes well, it might even make sense to ship the other "enemy combatants" to Mars, too.
The notion of receiving a fair trial appears to be a rather antiquated one. Saddam Hussein would agree. It's not like Mohammed has claimed he's innocent. To the contrary, he flaunts his guilt.
Everybody knows how this movie is going to end, so why waste taxpayer money, why not imbue the phrase "extraordinary rendition" with a whole new meaning by sending avowed terrorists into outer space? To borrow a word the president seemed to enjoy during his first State of the Union speech, this gesture may even act as a deterrent, and enhance national security.
After all, if you knew the sentence for committing a terrorist act is being shipped off to another planet, and dumped, you might think twice before blowing yourself up. Hell, you might even think once before blowing yourself up.
Besides, nobody really expects to see a trial in a federal courthouse featuring the mastermind of 9/11 to be anything more than a malformed media circus that will achieve nothing other than boosting ratings on television news networks.
Of course, some Martians might complain that we're turning their planet into a dumping ground for earth's misfits, but then there will be proof positive that life on Mars does exist. Some environmentalists here on earth might also argue against polluting Mars with our moral carcinogens, and kamikaze criminals, but isn't this what Great Britain did when it emptied its jails onto the Mayflower, and we don't seem to be any worse for it, do we?
From the garden
So the light
through
the storm clouds
came.
We didn’t know
what
to
make of
it
at first,
and dared to
ask
when
will it come back
again.
By Jayne Lyn Stahl
(c) Jayne Lyn Stahl
January 29, 2010
through
the storm clouds
came.
We didn’t know
what
to
make of
it
at first,
and dared to
ask
when
will it come back
again.
By Jayne Lyn Stahl
(c) Jayne Lyn Stahl
January 29, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Dereliction of Duty?
Why is it Pakistani journalists asked Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, whether the U.S. is trying to get control of Pakistan's nuclear weapons, and American journalists didn't.
Instead, U.S. journalists reported on Pakistani journalists questioning Gates.
The obvious is often the most elusive, often deliberately. Just as the absence of responsible reporting will someday be given as a strong part of the buildup in Iraq, the same applies to what's now going on in Pakistan.
When are the news media planning to come back from lunch?
Instead, U.S. journalists reported on Pakistani journalists questioning Gates.
The obvious is often the most elusive, often deliberately. Just as the absence of responsible reporting will someday be given as a strong part of the buildup in Iraq, the same applies to what's now going on in Pakistan.
When are the news media planning to come back from lunch?
Mirandize Banks?
With last week's Supreme Court ruling, corporations have been granted the right to free speech just like private citizens. Indeed, according to Justices Roberts, Scalia, Alioto, and Thomas, corporations are now persons in the eyes of the law.
But, entitlement to constitutional rights, and elevation to the legal status of personhood, also implies accountability. So, by extension, if corporations are entitled to First Amendment protection, then why can't they be arrested?
Why can't banks, and other financial institutions, like Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, AIG, that have defrauded consumers, taxpayers, and the federal government out of billions of dollars be mirandized?
Instead of giving them a little slap on the wrist as the President now proposes to do with his bank tax, why not mirandize them -- read them their rights, starting with "You have the right to remain silent... Anything you say will be used against you in a court of law...You have the right to an attorney during interrogation."
The Supreme Court may, inadvertently, have set an unexpected precedent. This administration may now have the right to arrest, and practice unlimited detention on CEOs of corporate entities recently promoted to personhood by the highest court in the land. And, one thing you can count on, should that ever happen, rest assured these banksters will receive better treatment than 99% of U.S. citizens in jails right now.
But, entitlement to constitutional rights, and elevation to the legal status of personhood, also implies accountability. So, by extension, if corporations are entitled to First Amendment protection, then why can't they be arrested?
Why can't banks, and other financial institutions, like Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, AIG, that have defrauded consumers, taxpayers, and the federal government out of billions of dollars be mirandized?
Instead of giving them a little slap on the wrist as the President now proposes to do with his bank tax, why not mirandize them -- read them their rights, starting with "You have the right to remain silent... Anything you say will be used against you in a court of law...You have the right to an attorney during interrogation."
The Supreme Court may, inadvertently, have set an unexpected precedent. This administration may now have the right to arrest, and practice unlimited detention on CEOs of corporate entities recently promoted to personhood by the highest court in the land. And, one thing you can count on, should that ever happen, rest assured these banksters will receive better treatment than 99% of U.S. citizens in jails right now.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Question for the Supreme Court
After last week's ruling granting First Amendment rights to corporations, I have one quick question for justices of the Supreme Court:
If corporations are people, why can't we arrest them?
If corporations are people, why can't we arrest them?
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Southern California School District to Ban Merriam Webster's Dictionary?
In a small town less than a hundred miles south of Los Angeles, a school district will soon meet to decide whether or not to ban Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary as being "age in-appropriate."
According to an article in the Associated Press, the whole bruhaha started with a parent's complaint that his child came across the words "oral sex." The dictionaries were removed from classrooms last week, and a committee is being formed to determine whether a permanent ban on Merriam Webster dictionary is in order.
Menifee, which is in Riverside County, is a small town with under 100,000 residents. Their school district serves students from kindergarten through eight grade.
The decision to remove the dictionaries from the shelves of all classrooms in the school district, according to an assistant superintendant, wasn't only because the dictionary mentions "oral sex," but "a number of referenced words" school administrators found offensive. Clearly, Menifee elders are more concerned about insulating children than educating them.
Coming on the heels of a Supreme Court decision that imbues corporate entities with so-called free speech, one wonders what kind of lesson the city of Menifee has for its youngsters about the First Amendment.
If Menifee's school district decides to permanently ban Merriam Webster's Dictionary from their classrooms, they will be setting a deafening precedent not only by banning valuable resource books, but by yielding to parental pressure.
There can be no education without access to information.
And, moreover, should the school district's committee decide to make the egregious act of pulling dictionaries from school shelves school policy, no educator in Menifee will be able to teach seventh grade American history without also removing the Bill of Rights.
According to an article in the Associated Press, the whole bruhaha started with a parent's complaint that his child came across the words "oral sex." The dictionaries were removed from classrooms last week, and a committee is being formed to determine whether a permanent ban on Merriam Webster dictionary is in order.
Menifee, which is in Riverside County, is a small town with under 100,000 residents. Their school district serves students from kindergarten through eight grade.
The decision to remove the dictionaries from the shelves of all classrooms in the school district, according to an assistant superintendant, wasn't only because the dictionary mentions "oral sex," but "a number of referenced words" school administrators found offensive. Clearly, Menifee elders are more concerned about insulating children than educating them.
Coming on the heels of a Supreme Court decision that imbues corporate entities with so-called free speech, one wonders what kind of lesson the city of Menifee has for its youngsters about the First Amendment.
If Menifee's school district decides to permanently ban Merriam Webster's Dictionary from their classrooms, they will be setting a deafening precedent not only by banning valuable resource books, but by yielding to parental pressure.
There can be no education without access to information.
And, moreover, should the school district's committee decide to make the egregious act of pulling dictionaries from school shelves school policy, no educator in Menifee will be able to teach seventh grade American history without also removing the Bill of Rights.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
A Teachable Moment
Okay, it's late, nearly midnight, on a Saturday night and probably not the best time to write about current events, but something has been plaguing me ever since Scott Brown pulled off what many describe as a major coup for the Republicans by winning Sen. Ted Kennedy's seat in Massachusetts.
What I want to know is why it's impossible to get the centerfold image of Brown, the one where he poses nearly nude for "Cosmo," out of my mind? What next, will Sarah Palin join the ranks of those baring all, but their game plan and a clear political platform? And, if she did, would that make all your average garden variety meat eating neanderthals flood the polls on November 4, 2012 given, God forbid, that Ms. Palin does become her party's nominee.
But, by the looks of things, Palin has already been out trumped by Beefcake Charley Brown. By the way, apart from an incisive and right on the mark piece by David Corn, can anybody name three things that Brown stands for? He's quite clear about what's he's against: 1) health care reform, 2) big government, and 3) higher taxes, but what concrete plan does he have for solving the massive problems of his state? Or, does anyone care about his platform, in the end, or just the platform bed he's posing on?
Sarah Palin and Scott Brown are not anomalies. They are the logical extension of what happens when the media becomes an instrument of seduction instead of exposition. The genie was out of the bottle during the Kennedy/Nixon debates, and now the genie is definitely in the centerfold.
If the special election in Massachusetts happened to teach the Democrats something about what they must do, as a party, to recapture that populist spark that gave Barack Obama a 28 point lead over John McCain in November, 2008, it is that charisma rules at the expense of substance, and that the boundaries between Republican and Democrat have been sufficiently blurred as to make independents jump from one party to the next like a couple of frogs in a frozen lake.
Any ship that has too much weight in the center will sink. If he really wants to get the upper hand with the banks and Wall Street, Obama better start his spring cleaning early. Goldman Sachs, AIG, JP Morgan Chase, XE, Halliburton, and the Fortune 500s have been running this country for generations, and running it into the ground.
The best antidote to Scott Brown is to not to give undue weight to his candidacy. He tips the balance, in the Senate, but it was a precarious balance at that. So-called "blue dog" Democrats have seen to that.
Oh, and by the way, must one become a corporation to be granted constitutional protection in this country now?
No one ever got very far in neutral. It's time to put the "pro" back in progressive, or suffer the consequences when reactionaries prevail
What I want to know is why it's impossible to get the centerfold image of Brown, the one where he poses nearly nude for "Cosmo," out of my mind? What next, will Sarah Palin join the ranks of those baring all, but their game plan and a clear political platform? And, if she did, would that make all your average garden variety meat eating neanderthals flood the polls on November 4, 2012 given, God forbid, that Ms. Palin does become her party's nominee.
But, by the looks of things, Palin has already been out trumped by Beefcake Charley Brown. By the way, apart from an incisive and right on the mark piece by David Corn, can anybody name three things that Brown stands for? He's quite clear about what's he's against: 1) health care reform, 2) big government, and 3) higher taxes, but what concrete plan does he have for solving the massive problems of his state? Or, does anyone care about his platform, in the end, or just the platform bed he's posing on?
Sarah Palin and Scott Brown are not anomalies. They are the logical extension of what happens when the media becomes an instrument of seduction instead of exposition. The genie was out of the bottle during the Kennedy/Nixon debates, and now the genie is definitely in the centerfold.
If the special election in Massachusetts happened to teach the Democrats something about what they must do, as a party, to recapture that populist spark that gave Barack Obama a 28 point lead over John McCain in November, 2008, it is that charisma rules at the expense of substance, and that the boundaries between Republican and Democrat have been sufficiently blurred as to make independents jump from one party to the next like a couple of frogs in a frozen lake.
Any ship that has too much weight in the center will sink. If he really wants to get the upper hand with the banks and Wall Street, Obama better start his spring cleaning early. Goldman Sachs, AIG, JP Morgan Chase, XE, Halliburton, and the Fortune 500s have been running this country for generations, and running it into the ground.
The best antidote to Scott Brown is to not to give undue weight to his candidacy. He tips the balance, in the Senate, but it was a precarious balance at that. So-called "blue dog" Democrats have seen to that.
Oh, and by the way, must one become a corporation to be granted constitutional protection in this country now?
No one ever got very far in neutral. It's time to put the "pro" back in progressive, or suffer the consequences when reactionaries prevail
Friday, January 22, 2010
From Michael Winship
Courtesy of Bill Moyers Journal, and Public Affairs Television:
Progressives: Don't Mourn, Organize
By Michael Winship
Tragic events continuing out of Haiti make all the bad news for progressives this week wither in comparison. Nonetheless, over these last few days, for liberals in particular, there has been no joy in Mudville - aka American politics.
Just for starters: Thursday's Supreme Court decision opening the floodgates for corporate dollars dominating campaign advertising; the election of Republican Scott Brown to the Senate, ending the Democrats so-called supermajority of 60 votes; and the subsequent collapse of health care reform as Democratic members of Congress scurried for the fire exits.
For a moment at least President Obama must have felt like he was in one of those animated cartoons where the hero tries to rally his troops shouting, "What are we, men or mice?" and the response is a chorus of rodent-like squeaks.
Add to this John Edwards confessing - finally - to paternity, and the withdrawal of Erroll Southers' name as Obama's choice to run the Transportation Security Administration after weeks of harassment by conservative Senator Jim DeMint (and the revelation that Southers had dissembled about incidents 20 years ago when he accessed a Federal database to investigate his estranged wife's new boyfriend). Yikes.
Then, just to ice this cookie full of arsenic, comes news of the demise of the progressive radio network Air America. It was a misbegotten enterprise from the onset, intentions noble but its finances always in a state of jangling uncertainty (in the interest of full disclosure, I made regular appearances for a short while on their morning show, "Unfiltered," hosted by Lizz Winstead, Chuck D and Rachel Maddow - Rachel being the best and smartest on-air personage to have emerged from
the entire Air America enterprise).
Why progressive talk radio has been unable to counter the right-wing, talk radio juggernaut seems no great mystery. The nuance and diffuse nature of much liberal debate is unlike the bombast and accusation that sells beverages and shock absorbers. "Yes, but on the other hand" works great for NPR, God bless them, but not in the loud and confrontational world of commercial talk radio, where gladiatorial skills are more valued than dialectical ones.
More important, Air America was never able to attract the big corporate dollars, its audience too small and, one presumes, because its politics did not gibe with the free market agenda of many large sponsors and their associates, the ones with the deepest pockets.
Just look, for example, at the wallet of the conservative United States Chamber of Commerce, which describes itself as "the world's largest business federation representing 3 million businesses of all sizes, sectors, and regions." The Chamber bragged about the cash they poured into TV ads supporting Scott Brown in the Massachusetts Senate race - more than half a million dollars' worth by last count - and said his victory "could pay immediate dividends by throwing into question the
future of health care reform legislation pending in Congress." Check and double check.
It's the opening salvo in their campaign to block just about any kind of reform by backing pro-business candidates in this fall's midterm elections - in all, the Chamber plans to spend a whopping $100 million dollars. Not that they have to buy any more members of Congress - as we've seen this past year, and especially this week, the Democrats and Republicans they've already helped pay for are perfectly capable of bringing the House and Senate to a compete standstill - witness health
care, the cap-and-trade climate bill and the disinclination to truly step up to the plate on financial reform. All thanks in part to the lobbying efforts and campaign cash of big business, which, with this week's Supreme Court decision, will be all the more able to deluge the airwaves and Internet with an unending barrage of ads in favor or against the candidates and issues of their choice..
But this is no time to run and hide. As the historian Simon Schama wrote in the January 19 edition of the Financial Times, the President "may actually need to respond to the unrelenting pressure from zombie conservatism, ravenously flesh-eating and never quite dead, not by turning on more consensual charm, but by taking the gloves off. With his bank levy
'We want our money back,' he said - Mr Obama has belatedly begun to fight. Whether he can trade enough punches with the right before the November mid-term elections remains to be seen, but my hunch is that President Composure is up for a brawl."
To do so, he will have to speak out forcefully and counter the bulldozing effect of megabucks with solid community support. A report last week by David Corn on the Mother Jones Web site was not encouraging, suggesting that the volunteer army of more than 13 million activists and donors that sparkplugged Obama's presidential campaign has been too often ignored or misused by the White House.
An investigation commissioned by the crosspartisan group blog TechPresident.com found that as far as advancing a progressive agenda goes, the effort that arose from the Obama campaign, Organizing for America (OFA), "focused more on supporting and thanking allied Members than pressuring resistant Democrats or Republicans." In other words, toomany e-mail offers of OFA tee-shirts and wool hats and not enough boots on the ground canvassing and lobbying.
This is no time to go wobbly, as Margaret Thatcher famously told George Bush the First. But given the events of this week, perhaps even more appropriate are the pre-firing squad words of that most famous Wobbly, radical and labor activist Joe Hill: Don't mourn, organize
Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program
Bill Moyers Journal, which airs Friday night on PBS.
Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog at www.pbs.org/moyers
Progressives: Don't Mourn, Organize
By Michael Winship
Tragic events continuing out of Haiti make all the bad news for progressives this week wither in comparison. Nonetheless, over these last few days, for liberals in particular, there has been no joy in Mudville - aka American politics.
Just for starters: Thursday's Supreme Court decision opening the floodgates for corporate dollars dominating campaign advertising; the election of Republican Scott Brown to the Senate, ending the Democrats so-called supermajority of 60 votes; and the subsequent collapse of health care reform as Democratic members of Congress scurried for the fire exits.
For a moment at least President Obama must have felt like he was in one of those animated cartoons where the hero tries to rally his troops shouting, "What are we, men or mice?" and the response is a chorus of rodent-like squeaks.
Add to this John Edwards confessing - finally - to paternity, and the withdrawal of Erroll Southers' name as Obama's choice to run the Transportation Security Administration after weeks of harassment by conservative Senator Jim DeMint (and the revelation that Southers had dissembled about incidents 20 years ago when he accessed a Federal database to investigate his estranged wife's new boyfriend). Yikes.
Then, just to ice this cookie full of arsenic, comes news of the demise of the progressive radio network Air America. It was a misbegotten enterprise from the onset, intentions noble but its finances always in a state of jangling uncertainty (in the interest of full disclosure, I made regular appearances for a short while on their morning show, "Unfiltered," hosted by Lizz Winstead, Chuck D and Rachel Maddow - Rachel being the best and smartest on-air personage to have emerged from
the entire Air America enterprise).
Why progressive talk radio has been unable to counter the right-wing, talk radio juggernaut seems no great mystery. The nuance and diffuse nature of much liberal debate is unlike the bombast and accusation that sells beverages and shock absorbers. "Yes, but on the other hand" works great for NPR, God bless them, but not in the loud and confrontational world of commercial talk radio, where gladiatorial skills are more valued than dialectical ones.
More important, Air America was never able to attract the big corporate dollars, its audience too small and, one presumes, because its politics did not gibe with the free market agenda of many large sponsors and their associates, the ones with the deepest pockets.
Just look, for example, at the wallet of the conservative United States Chamber of Commerce, which describes itself as "the world's largest business federation representing 3 million businesses of all sizes, sectors, and regions." The Chamber bragged about the cash they poured into TV ads supporting Scott Brown in the Massachusetts Senate race - more than half a million dollars' worth by last count - and said his victory "could pay immediate dividends by throwing into question the
future of health care reform legislation pending in Congress." Check and double check.
It's the opening salvo in their campaign to block just about any kind of reform by backing pro-business candidates in this fall's midterm elections - in all, the Chamber plans to spend a whopping $100 million dollars. Not that they have to buy any more members of Congress - as we've seen this past year, and especially this week, the Democrats and Republicans they've already helped pay for are perfectly capable of bringing the House and Senate to a compete standstill - witness health
care, the cap-and-trade climate bill and the disinclination to truly step up to the plate on financial reform. All thanks in part to the lobbying efforts and campaign cash of big business, which, with this week's Supreme Court decision, will be all the more able to deluge the airwaves and Internet with an unending barrage of ads in favor or against the candidates and issues of their choice..
But this is no time to run and hide. As the historian Simon Schama wrote in the January 19 edition of the Financial Times, the President "may actually need to respond to the unrelenting pressure from zombie conservatism, ravenously flesh-eating and never quite dead, not by turning on more consensual charm, but by taking the gloves off. With his bank levy
'We want our money back,' he said - Mr Obama has belatedly begun to fight. Whether he can trade enough punches with the right before the November mid-term elections remains to be seen, but my hunch is that President Composure is up for a brawl."
To do so, he will have to speak out forcefully and counter the bulldozing effect of megabucks with solid community support. A report last week by David Corn on the Mother Jones Web site was not encouraging, suggesting that the volunteer army of more than 13 million activists and donors that sparkplugged Obama's presidential campaign has been too often ignored or misused by the White House.
An investigation commissioned by the crosspartisan group blog TechPresident.com found that as far as advancing a progressive agenda goes, the effort that arose from the Obama campaign, Organizing for America (OFA), "focused more on supporting and thanking allied Members than pressuring resistant Democrats or Republicans." In other words, toomany e-mail offers of OFA tee-shirts and wool hats and not enough boots on the ground canvassing and lobbying.
This is no time to go wobbly, as Margaret Thatcher famously told George Bush the First. But given the events of this week, perhaps even more appropriate are the pre-firing squad words of that most famous Wobbly, radical and labor activist Joe Hill: Don't mourn, organize
Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program
Bill Moyers Journal, which airs Friday night on PBS.
Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog at www.pbs.org/moyers
Sunday, January 17, 2010
"Global Cooling? Tell It to the Jellyfish" by Michael Winship
"Global Cooling? Tell It to the Jellyfish"
By Michael Winship
There are certain newspaper headlines that catch your eye and stop you in your tracks. Like the New York Post's famous "Headless Body in Topless Bar." Or such tabloid greats as "Evil Cows Ate My Garden," "Double Decker Bus Found on Moon," and my personal favorite, "Proof of Reincarnation: Baby Born with Wooden Leg."
Along similar lines, I was startled this week when London's Daily Mail published an article headlined, "Could we be in for 30 years of global COOLING?" Triggered by the unusual cold and snow in the United Kingdom over the last few weeks, the article began, "Britain's big freeze is the start of a worldwide trend towards colder weather that seriously challenges global warming theories, eminent scientists claimed yesterday."
The story went on to reference various researchers and their institutions, including the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado in Boulder, which reported, according to the Mail, that, "the warming of the Earth since 1900 is due to natural oceanic cycles, and not man-made greenhouse gases."
This was followed by an article on the Fox News Web site with the headline, "30 Years of Global Cooling Are Coming, Leading Scientist Says."
There are only two small problems, as was pointed out by Steve Benen on Washington Monthly magazine's "Political Animal" blog: "First, the National Snow and Ice Data Center said no such thing. The director of the NSIDC said, 'This is completely false. NSIDC has never made such a statement and we were never contacted by anyone from the Daily Mail.'" (Subsequently, both Fox and the Mail removed the reference to the NSIDC in their articles.)
Second, as proof of global cooling, both stories cited research conducted by Mojib Latif, a prominent climate modeler with the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Latif's response to their reporting? "I don't know what to do," he said. "They just make these things up."
Latif's work on climatology is complex and often difficult to understand, which is why the Fox and Daily Mail reporters may have his story mixed up - it wouldn't be the first time journalists have been confused by his findings. But as cogently interpreted by the physicist and climate expert Dr. Joseph Romm of the liberal Center for American Progress, "Latif has NOT predicted a cooling trend - or a 'decades-long deep freeze' - but rather a short-time span where human-caused warming might be partly offset by ocean cycles, staying at current record levels, but then followed by 'accelerated' warming where you catch up to the long-term human-caused trend. He does NOT forecast 2 or 3 decades of cooling."
In fact, as Latif told the British newspaper the Guardian, "I believe in manmade global warming... There is no doubt within the scientific community that we are affecting the climate, that the climate is changing and responding to our emissions of greenhouse gases."
And if you don't believe him, ask the jellyfish.
Jellyfish don't lie. Well, sometimes they lie - deceased and desiccated along the beach, which from strolling along various Eastern Seaboard shores is about the extent of my knowledge of them. That, and that Ogden Nash couplet, the one that goes, "Who wants my jellyfish? I am not sellyfish!"
But according to the Associated Press, the jellyfish population is rising. The news service reports, "Scientists believe climate change - the warming of oceans - has allowed some of the almost 2,000 jellyfish species to expand their ranges, appear earlier in the year and increase overall numbers, much as warming has helped ticks, bark beetles and other pests to spread to new latitudes."
This has led to all manner of consequences, some you would expect, others not. A 2008 National Science Foundation study found populations growing along the East Coast - in the Chesapeake Bay area, people are stung about half a million times a year. In the Middle East and Africa, swarms have jammed hydroelectric and desalination plants, forcing them to shut down. In Japan, the fishing industry is losing up to $332 million a year because jellyfish swarms fill the nets, crowding out mackerel, sea bass and other fish.
The AP reports that in October, off the eastern coast of Japan, "Jelly-filled nets capsized a 10-ton trawler as its crew tried to pull them up. The three fishermen were rescued." I know this all sounds like something out of a Godzilla movie, but it's serious stuff.
And speaking of jellyfish, here's a headline you may not see anytime soon: "Senate Passes Sweeping Climate Bill."
Although in a January 14 speech to the Energy Finance Forum, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said, "Taking on the clean-energy challenge... may be the most important policy we will ever pass. And we cannot afford to wait any longer to act," the cap-and-trade climate bill that narrowly passed the House of Representatives back in June malingers in the purgatory of the Senate.
And next week, Senator Reid will allow a vote on an amendment to the legislation lifting the Federal debt ceiling. Proposed by Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, it would block the enforcement funding of the Environmental Protection Agency, giving free rein to the coal industry and other big polluters to ignore the Clean Air Act.
The activist group Credo Action, part of the company Working Assets, notes "You would think this would be easy to stop, but the vote is predicted to be close with many Democrats considering voting for the bill... The coal industry has been working furiously to close deals with senators across the political spectrum, including those who say they want to protect the environment."
Jellyfish.
By Michael Winship
There are certain newspaper headlines that catch your eye and stop you in your tracks. Like the New York Post's famous "Headless Body in Topless Bar." Or such tabloid greats as "Evil Cows Ate My Garden," "Double Decker Bus Found on Moon," and my personal favorite, "Proof of Reincarnation: Baby Born with Wooden Leg."
Along similar lines, I was startled this week when London's Daily Mail published an article headlined, "Could we be in for 30 years of global COOLING?" Triggered by the unusual cold and snow in the United Kingdom over the last few weeks, the article began, "Britain's big freeze is the start of a worldwide trend towards colder weather that seriously challenges global warming theories, eminent scientists claimed yesterday."
The story went on to reference various researchers and their institutions, including the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado in Boulder, which reported, according to the Mail, that, "the warming of the Earth since 1900 is due to natural oceanic cycles, and not man-made greenhouse gases."
This was followed by an article on the Fox News Web site with the headline, "30 Years of Global Cooling Are Coming, Leading Scientist Says."
There are only two small problems, as was pointed out by Steve Benen on Washington Monthly magazine's "Political Animal" blog: "First, the National Snow and Ice Data Center said no such thing. The director of the NSIDC said, 'This is completely false. NSIDC has never made such a statement and we were never contacted by anyone from the Daily Mail.'" (Subsequently, both Fox and the Mail removed the reference to the NSIDC in their articles.)
Second, as proof of global cooling, both stories cited research conducted by Mojib Latif, a prominent climate modeler with the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Latif's response to their reporting? "I don't know what to do," he said. "They just make these things up."
Latif's work on climatology is complex and often difficult to understand, which is why the Fox and Daily Mail reporters may have his story mixed up - it wouldn't be the first time journalists have been confused by his findings. But as cogently interpreted by the physicist and climate expert Dr. Joseph Romm of the liberal Center for American Progress, "Latif has NOT predicted a cooling trend - or a 'decades-long deep freeze' - but rather a short-time span where human-caused warming might be partly offset by ocean cycles, staying at current record levels, but then followed by 'accelerated' warming where you catch up to the long-term human-caused trend. He does NOT forecast 2 or 3 decades of cooling."
In fact, as Latif told the British newspaper the Guardian, "I believe in manmade global warming... There is no doubt within the scientific community that we are affecting the climate, that the climate is changing and responding to our emissions of greenhouse gases."
And if you don't believe him, ask the jellyfish.
Jellyfish don't lie. Well, sometimes they lie - deceased and desiccated along the beach, which from strolling along various Eastern Seaboard shores is about the extent of my knowledge of them. That, and that Ogden Nash couplet, the one that goes, "Who wants my jellyfish? I am not sellyfish!"
But according to the Associated Press, the jellyfish population is rising. The news service reports, "Scientists believe climate change - the warming of oceans - has allowed some of the almost 2,000 jellyfish species to expand their ranges, appear earlier in the year and increase overall numbers, much as warming has helped ticks, bark beetles and other pests to spread to new latitudes."
This has led to all manner of consequences, some you would expect, others not. A 2008 National Science Foundation study found populations growing along the East Coast - in the Chesapeake Bay area, people are stung about half a million times a year. In the Middle East and Africa, swarms have jammed hydroelectric and desalination plants, forcing them to shut down. In Japan, the fishing industry is losing up to $332 million a year because jellyfish swarms fill the nets, crowding out mackerel, sea bass and other fish.
The AP reports that in October, off the eastern coast of Japan, "Jelly-filled nets capsized a 10-ton trawler as its crew tried to pull them up. The three fishermen were rescued." I know this all sounds like something out of a Godzilla movie, but it's serious stuff.
And speaking of jellyfish, here's a headline you may not see anytime soon: "Senate Passes Sweeping Climate Bill."
Although in a January 14 speech to the Energy Finance Forum, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said, "Taking on the clean-energy challenge... may be the most important policy we will ever pass. And we cannot afford to wait any longer to act," the cap-and-trade climate bill that narrowly passed the House of Representatives back in June malingers in the purgatory of the Senate.
And next week, Senator Reid will allow a vote on an amendment to the legislation lifting the Federal debt ceiling. Proposed by Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, it would block the enforcement funding of the Environmental Protection Agency, giving free rein to the coal industry and other big polluters to ignore the Clean Air Act.
The activist group Credo Action, part of the company Working Assets, notes "You would think this would be easy to stop, but the vote is predicted to be close with many Democrats considering voting for the bill... The coal industry has been working furiously to close deals with senators across the political spectrum, including those who say they want to protect the environment."
Jellyfish.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Happy Birthday...
to the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. who would have been 81 years old today. The dream is still alive even if it is on life support.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Too Soon to Fail?
There's been a lot of talk about banks being "too big to fail" lately. And, as the one year anniversary of Obama's inauguration approaches, there's been lots of controversy about what he has, and has not, accomplished.
Many would prefer to focus on the bad news, and fairly. After all, health care reform that was promised during the 2008 campaign should it pass would itself require reform. As it stands now, the so-called public option has vanished, and was replaced, essentially,with taxpayer subsidies for the insurance industry. The idea of so-called "universal health coverage" has morphed into a mandate with a Cadillac tax clause that, as it stands, will wind up taxing everybody who has insurance, not just those who can afford Cadillacs.
Since he took his oath of office, last January, the idea of cloning has grown to include members of Congress as the American people daily watch how, despite having a plurality in both the House and the Senate, the Democrats have effectively become their conservative Republican counterparts when asking for things like assurance that federal funds won't go to subsidize legal abortion.
And, of course, there is the matter of those egregious bonuses big banks have paid to their chief executives, as well as what the president rightly terms their "obscene" profits. Obama announced his proposal for a "financial crisis responsiblity fee" intended for the largest banks, the ones that are "too big to fail."
More than $100 billion of taxpayer money was spent to save the banks from their toxic assets. One can hardly expect that, altogether, the amount that accrues from the so-called "responsibility fee" will come anywhere near the amount banks now collect for bounced checks. But, it is, as they say, the thought that counts.
How can one celebrate the recovery of stolen funds without first addressing how it is they came to be stolen in the first place.
As if that weren't enough, there is the clamor, from both the left and the right, to address the transgressions of Wall Street that have managed to creep like raw sewage into this administration's own cabinet combined with the fact that Obama will reportedly ask Congress for an additional $33 billion for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq on top of the record $708 billion already allocated for the Defense Department next year, and this on top of grim retail and unemployment figures. And, that $33 billion doesn't even include a covert war being waged in Pakistan, by remote control death machines called drones, that have claimed the lives of 700 Pakistani citizens in 2009 alone.
No one has noticed seismic movement from the Bush/Cheney years when it comes to issues like electronic eavesdropping, the USA Patriot Act, allowing the divulging of millions of White House e-mails "disappeared" under the Bush administration, the state secrets defense, vows to seek revenge against a deliberately amorphous enemy, at least not yet.
Yes, Blackwater has changed--it's now XE, and Iraqis have formed a class action lawsuit to go after the five contractors who senselessly slaughtered more than a dozen unarmed Iraqi civilians because they could.
Well, they can't get away with that anymore, can they? Not with the whole world watching.
There's a lot that needs fixing. Rest assured, this president knows that. So, instead of focusing on what hasn't been done, or what went wrong in the past year, let's focus instead on the three years ahead.
Citizenship comes with certain duties, too, one of which is speaking up when a government appears to be veering off course. Governance is a collaborative effort.
One may see the glass as half empty, or half full. The first year is gone, but another three years remain. America has lost its legitimacy as a world leader, and even Houdini couldn't restore that with the stroke of a pen, or in a matter of a dozen months. The only thing more audacious than hope, right now, is faith and, as Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. said "Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase."
The corruption that has surfaced since the Nixon years isn't about insider trading, or usury. It's political, and moral corruption.
We're not even close to seeing the whole staircase yet, and in the next 36 months, we have a right to demand a government that uses its resources, and energy to rebuild our inner cities, to house our homeless, to feed our hungry, to provide every working age man and woman with a job and a decent living wage, to make higher education a right and not a privilege for all our youngsters.
In the next three years, it is right to require of this president that he keep his promise to work for nuclear non-proliferation, and to realize the vision of another young president, John F. Kennedy, for "complete and total disarmament." It starts with a vision, but it doesn't end there, and it's up to each and every one of us to climb that staircase with this president.
If it may be said that a bank is "too big to fail," then it follows that it may be too soon to declare game over for a presidency that is in its first inning. For those who are still intent on looking for that silver lining, the next few years may yet hold a surprise or two.
Many would prefer to focus on the bad news, and fairly. After all, health care reform that was promised during the 2008 campaign should it pass would itself require reform. As it stands now, the so-called public option has vanished, and was replaced, essentially,with taxpayer subsidies for the insurance industry. The idea of so-called "universal health coverage" has morphed into a mandate with a Cadillac tax clause that, as it stands, will wind up taxing everybody who has insurance, not just those who can afford Cadillacs.
Since he took his oath of office, last January, the idea of cloning has grown to include members of Congress as the American people daily watch how, despite having a plurality in both the House and the Senate, the Democrats have effectively become their conservative Republican counterparts when asking for things like assurance that federal funds won't go to subsidize legal abortion.
And, of course, there is the matter of those egregious bonuses big banks have paid to their chief executives, as well as what the president rightly terms their "obscene" profits. Obama announced his proposal for a "financial crisis responsiblity fee" intended for the largest banks, the ones that are "too big to fail."
More than $100 billion of taxpayer money was spent to save the banks from their toxic assets. One can hardly expect that, altogether, the amount that accrues from the so-called "responsibility fee" will come anywhere near the amount banks now collect for bounced checks. But, it is, as they say, the thought that counts.
How can one celebrate the recovery of stolen funds without first addressing how it is they came to be stolen in the first place.
As if that weren't enough, there is the clamor, from both the left and the right, to address the transgressions of Wall Street that have managed to creep like raw sewage into this administration's own cabinet combined with the fact that Obama will reportedly ask Congress for an additional $33 billion for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq on top of the record $708 billion already allocated for the Defense Department next year, and this on top of grim retail and unemployment figures. And, that $33 billion doesn't even include a covert war being waged in Pakistan, by remote control death machines called drones, that have claimed the lives of 700 Pakistani citizens in 2009 alone.
No one has noticed seismic movement from the Bush/Cheney years when it comes to issues like electronic eavesdropping, the USA Patriot Act, allowing the divulging of millions of White House e-mails "disappeared" under the Bush administration, the state secrets defense, vows to seek revenge against a deliberately amorphous enemy, at least not yet.
Yes, Blackwater has changed--it's now XE, and Iraqis have formed a class action lawsuit to go after the five contractors who senselessly slaughtered more than a dozen unarmed Iraqi civilians because they could.
Well, they can't get away with that anymore, can they? Not with the whole world watching.
There's a lot that needs fixing. Rest assured, this president knows that. So, instead of focusing on what hasn't been done, or what went wrong in the past year, let's focus instead on the three years ahead.
Citizenship comes with certain duties, too, one of which is speaking up when a government appears to be veering off course. Governance is a collaborative effort.
One may see the glass as half empty, or half full. The first year is gone, but another three years remain. America has lost its legitimacy as a world leader, and even Houdini couldn't restore that with the stroke of a pen, or in a matter of a dozen months. The only thing more audacious than hope, right now, is faith and, as Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. said "Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase."
The corruption that has surfaced since the Nixon years isn't about insider trading, or usury. It's political, and moral corruption.
We're not even close to seeing the whole staircase yet, and in the next 36 months, we have a right to demand a government that uses its resources, and energy to rebuild our inner cities, to house our homeless, to feed our hungry, to provide every working age man and woman with a job and a decent living wage, to make higher education a right and not a privilege for all our youngsters.
In the next three years, it is right to require of this president that he keep his promise to work for nuclear non-proliferation, and to realize the vision of another young president, John F. Kennedy, for "complete and total disarmament." It starts with a vision, but it doesn't end there, and it's up to each and every one of us to climb that staircase with this president.
If it may be said that a bank is "too big to fail," then it follows that it may be too soon to declare game over for a presidency that is in its first inning. For those who are still intent on looking for that silver lining, the next few years may yet hold a surprise or two.
Friday, January 08, 2010
By Michael Winship
"California, Here We Come"
By Michael Winship
A number of years ago, when I would travel to California on business with my friend the late journalist and comedy writer Eliot Wald, we always carved out time to visit a couple of those massive Los Angeles grocery chains, like Ralph's or Vons.
It wasn't because we had a lust for retail or a massive munchie attack. Rather, we geekily would explore the aisles looking for the odd new products that had started in California, stuff we figured might soon migrate East. Like those big cardboard shades people prop up against the front windows of their parked cars to keep the interior from getting overheated. One of many brilliant California inventions descended from a long line of greats: the Hula Hoop and Frisbee, the Popsicle and Zamboni ice cleaning machine.
Eventually, Eliot moved to LA, where he could continue the pursuit full time. I still feel it's a nice place to visit, but why risk earthquakes or earning millions in the movie business?
Nonetheless, I continue to watch out for California innovations and keep an eye on the store shelves when I'm there. The state remains a harbinger of things to come. These days, though, what California's exporting - besides Chihuahuas to needy families east of the Rockies - is more disturbing.
On second thought, those Chihuahuas are pretty unsettling, too. You probably heard the story - the tiny dogs became big in California after such movies as Legally Blond and Beverly Hills Chihuahua and because Paris Hilton frequently was seen toting one around. Now they've gone into turnaround; their popularity has plummeted and there's a plethora of the diminutive pooches, seduced and abandoned. So they're being airlifted away from California animal shelters and euthanasia to
welcoming homes elsewhere, as long as they're not on Homeland Security's new and improved "no fly" list.
But I digress. This week, term-limited Terminator Arnold Schwarzenegger delivered his last State of the State address as governor of California and the prospects he outlined were not pleasing.
Despite his calls for an overhaul of the tax system and a proposed constitutional amendment to reverse the amounts of money California spends on education and its penal system, the state still has a $20 billion deficit with which to deal, and as Michael Rothfeld of the Los Angeles Times noted, "Legislators have already begun sensing that as a lame duck [Schwarzenegger] is easy prey and openly disregard some of his wishes. Members of his staff have already been quitting, and replacements are hard to come by."
Sadly, this time what California has gotten hold of ahead of the rest of the country is total political dysfunction. In part it's spurred by the requirement that anything having to do with taxes or the budget has to be passed by a two-thirds majority in both houses of the state legislature. But it has been exacerbated by increased polarization and backbiting.
As Washington Post columnist and blogger Ezra Klein - a Californian - wrote last Sunday, "The state let its political dysfunctions go unaddressed. Most assumed that the legislature's bickering would be cast aside in the face of an emergency. But the intransigence of California's legislators has not softened despite the spiraling unemployment, massive deficits and absence of buoyant growth on the horizon. Quite the opposite, in fact. The minority party spied opportunity in fiscal collapse. If the majority failed to govern the state, then the voters would turn on them, or so the theory went.
"That raises a troubling question: What happens when one of the two major parties does not see a political upside in solving problems and has the power to keep those problems from being solved?"
We've seen the answer in the first year of the current Congress, and if early prognostications for the midterm elections are remotely accurate, it's only going to get worse. Klein writes, "Congress has been virtually incapable of doing anything difficult because the minority party will either block it or run against it, or both. And make no mistake: Congress will need to do hard things, and soon... "No one who watched the health-care bill wind its way through the legislative process believes Congress is ready for the much harder and more controversial cost-cutting that will be necessary in the future...The lesson of California is that a political system too dysfunctional to avert crisis is also too dysfunctional to respond to
it."
Once again, it's time to climb to the battlements for comprehensive campaign finance reform, as money is fueling much of the lunatic partisan rancor that has us at impasse. What's more, this idea of a Supermajority in the Senate - the abuse of the rule that 60 votes are necessary to end debate or nothing gets done, a notion that's not in the Constitution (it calls for simple majority rule, except in limited cases
such as an impeachment trial, expulsion of a member, treaty ratification or overriding a presidential veto) - has to go.
Otherwise, nothing gets done. We may as well take our Chihuahuas and go home.
Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program
Bill Moyers Journal, which airs Friday night on PBS.
Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog at
www.pbs.org/moyers.
By Michael Winship
A number of years ago, when I would travel to California on business with my friend the late journalist and comedy writer Eliot Wald, we always carved out time to visit a couple of those massive Los Angeles grocery chains, like Ralph's or Vons.
It wasn't because we had a lust for retail or a massive munchie attack. Rather, we geekily would explore the aisles looking for the odd new products that had started in California, stuff we figured might soon migrate East. Like those big cardboard shades people prop up against the front windows of their parked cars to keep the interior from getting overheated. One of many brilliant California inventions descended from a long line of greats: the Hula Hoop and Frisbee, the Popsicle and Zamboni ice cleaning machine.
Eventually, Eliot moved to LA, where he could continue the pursuit full time. I still feel it's a nice place to visit, but why risk earthquakes or earning millions in the movie business?
Nonetheless, I continue to watch out for California innovations and keep an eye on the store shelves when I'm there. The state remains a harbinger of things to come. These days, though, what California's exporting - besides Chihuahuas to needy families east of the Rockies - is more disturbing.
On second thought, those Chihuahuas are pretty unsettling, too. You probably heard the story - the tiny dogs became big in California after such movies as Legally Blond and Beverly Hills Chihuahua and because Paris Hilton frequently was seen toting one around. Now they've gone into turnaround; their popularity has plummeted and there's a plethora of the diminutive pooches, seduced and abandoned. So they're being airlifted away from California animal shelters and euthanasia to
welcoming homes elsewhere, as long as they're not on Homeland Security's new and improved "no fly" list.
But I digress. This week, term-limited Terminator Arnold Schwarzenegger delivered his last State of the State address as governor of California and the prospects he outlined were not pleasing.
Despite his calls for an overhaul of the tax system and a proposed constitutional amendment to reverse the amounts of money California spends on education and its penal system, the state still has a $20 billion deficit with which to deal, and as Michael Rothfeld of the Los Angeles Times noted, "Legislators have already begun sensing that as a lame duck [Schwarzenegger] is easy prey and openly disregard some of his wishes. Members of his staff have already been quitting, and replacements are hard to come by."
Sadly, this time what California has gotten hold of ahead of the rest of the country is total political dysfunction. In part it's spurred by the requirement that anything having to do with taxes or the budget has to be passed by a two-thirds majority in both houses of the state legislature. But it has been exacerbated by increased polarization and backbiting.
As Washington Post columnist and blogger Ezra Klein - a Californian - wrote last Sunday, "The state let its political dysfunctions go unaddressed. Most assumed that the legislature's bickering would be cast aside in the face of an emergency. But the intransigence of California's legislators has not softened despite the spiraling unemployment, massive deficits and absence of buoyant growth on the horizon. Quite the opposite, in fact. The minority party spied opportunity in fiscal collapse. If the majority failed to govern the state, then the voters would turn on them, or so the theory went.
"That raises a troubling question: What happens when one of the two major parties does not see a political upside in solving problems and has the power to keep those problems from being solved?"
We've seen the answer in the first year of the current Congress, and if early prognostications for the midterm elections are remotely accurate, it's only going to get worse. Klein writes, "Congress has been virtually incapable of doing anything difficult because the minority party will either block it or run against it, or both. And make no mistake: Congress will need to do hard things, and soon... "No one who watched the health-care bill wind its way through the legislative process believes Congress is ready for the much harder and more controversial cost-cutting that will be necessary in the future...The lesson of California is that a political system too dysfunctional to avert crisis is also too dysfunctional to respond to
it."
Once again, it's time to climb to the battlements for comprehensive campaign finance reform, as money is fueling much of the lunatic partisan rancor that has us at impasse. What's more, this idea of a Supermajority in the Senate - the abuse of the rule that 60 votes are necessary to end debate or nothing gets done, a notion that's not in the Constitution (it calls for simple majority rule, except in limited cases
such as an impeachment trial, expulsion of a member, treaty ratification or overriding a presidential veto) - has to go.
Otherwise, nothing gets done. We may as well take our Chihuahuas and go home.
Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program
Bill Moyers Journal, which airs Friday night on PBS.
Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog at
www.pbs.org/moyers.
Friday, January 01, 2010
A New Decade, and Time for a Peace Budget
I've never been one for New Year's resolutions maybe because they usually end on New Year's Eve, but last night under the electric blue moon it occurred to me that a nation can have resolutions, too. So, for this new year, America's resolution might be to take some of the egregious money now spent on making war, and mark it for peaceful enterprises instead.
When you consider that, just last month, Congress approved more than $636 billion for the Defense budget, with nearly $130 billion alone going to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is nothing short of obscene that not a dime was spent to incentivize manufacturers, and private industry, to see profit in that which is good for humankind instead of that which is destructive.
The spending plan Congress passed along to the president, according to Bloomberg News, contains nearly $3 billion for the acquisition of another 10 Boeing Co. C-17 transports despite Defense Secretary Robert Gates suggestion, early last spring, that the C-17 program end.
The budget also includes nearly $500 million for F-35 fighters built by General Electric Company, as well as a few dozen additional aircraft built by Lockheed Martin.
War is quite a lucrative industry which got me to thinking...what if we wait until July, 2011, and take the president at his word that the deescalation in Iraq, and Afghanistan will be complete, and what if there were to be no surging into Pakistan, Iran, Yemen, or North Korea, you think maybe, just maybe, the 2012 budget Congress sends off to the president might include a peace budget?
Say, for instance, Congress were to appropriate even 10% of what it endows to Defense for peaceful activities instead of combat operations that would mean more than $6.36 billion. But, better still, why not propose that 20% of the federal budget, or about $13 billion, for 2012 which could go instead for:
developing an infrastructure of peace, and encourage corporate investment in environmentally-friendly apparatus like electric cars, solar power, innovative farming methods, and clean air
subsidizing green jobs, and business that protect, instead of plunder, the environment
reconstructing those parts of the earth ravaged by war, and not just those we decimated for the sake of getting those reconstruction contracts
ending poverty, hunger, and global economic inequity which is at the root of global warfare. A hybrid economy must emerge, and one that combines the best of the free market while, at the same time, protecting and preserving the social good.
stopping rape, and genocide, in Darfur, and throughout Africa
combatting religious and racial intolerance
demilitarizing the planet, and setting a deadline for global nuclear proliferation
establishing an international venue where enemy nations can meet regularly to resolve their disputes through dialogue and negotiation instead of armed combat. Yes, this is what the United Nations was supposed to do, but it's not working, is it? The U.N. isn't the last stop on the train, just as it replaced the League of Nations, another organization must be formed that will do more than threaten economic sanctions, or be the bully pulpit of warring factions.
Okay, so this is a lot to ask for, and clearly not something that can happen in a year or two, or even in a decade, but given that the U.S. has already spent somewhere around $3 trillion on war in Iraq alone, $13 billion seems like a mere drop in the bucket, but it sure as hell is a good place to start.
When you consider that, just last month, Congress approved more than $636 billion for the Defense budget, with nearly $130 billion alone going to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is nothing short of obscene that not a dime was spent to incentivize manufacturers, and private industry, to see profit in that which is good for humankind instead of that which is destructive.
The spending plan Congress passed along to the president, according to Bloomberg News, contains nearly $3 billion for the acquisition of another 10 Boeing Co. C-17 transports despite Defense Secretary Robert Gates suggestion, early last spring, that the C-17 program end.
The budget also includes nearly $500 million for F-35 fighters built by General Electric Company, as well as a few dozen additional aircraft built by Lockheed Martin.
War is quite a lucrative industry which got me to thinking...what if we wait until July, 2011, and take the president at his word that the deescalation in Iraq, and Afghanistan will be complete, and what if there were to be no surging into Pakistan, Iran, Yemen, or North Korea, you think maybe, just maybe, the 2012 budget Congress sends off to the president might include a peace budget?
Say, for instance, Congress were to appropriate even 10% of what it endows to Defense for peaceful activities instead of combat operations that would mean more than $6.36 billion. But, better still, why not propose that 20% of the federal budget, or about $13 billion, for 2012 which could go instead for:
developing an infrastructure of peace, and encourage corporate investment in environmentally-friendly apparatus like electric cars, solar power, innovative farming methods, and clean air
subsidizing green jobs, and business that protect, instead of plunder, the environment
reconstructing those parts of the earth ravaged by war, and not just those we decimated for the sake of getting those reconstruction contracts
ending poverty, hunger, and global economic inequity which is at the root of global warfare. A hybrid economy must emerge, and one that combines the best of the free market while, at the same time, protecting and preserving the social good.
stopping rape, and genocide, in Darfur, and throughout Africa
combatting religious and racial intolerance
demilitarizing the planet, and setting a deadline for global nuclear proliferation
establishing an international venue where enemy nations can meet regularly to resolve their disputes through dialogue and negotiation instead of armed combat. Yes, this is what the United Nations was supposed to do, but it's not working, is it? The U.N. isn't the last stop on the train, just as it replaced the League of Nations, another organization must be formed that will do more than threaten economic sanctions, or be the bully pulpit of warring factions.
Okay, so this is a lot to ask for, and clearly not something that can happen in a year or two, or even in a decade, but given that the U.S. has already spent somewhere around $3 trillion on war in Iraq alone, $13 billion seems like a mere drop in the bucket, but it sure as hell is a good place to start.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
New Year's Fortune Cookie
This New Year's Eve, my fortune cookie says: "Your courage will guide your future."
May courage, and light guide us all.
Happy New Year!
May courage, and light guide us all.
Happy New Year!
Prune Juice and Nostalgia
Funny how mention of the smallest things can bring back memories, especially at this time of year when one often waxes nostalgic.
A friend just made a joke about prune juice and I was reminded of my short-lived career as a go go dancer. During a summer break from high school, I ran away to the Catskills, and ended up in a resort for seniors where I worked as a busboy during the day, and a go-go girl at night. Being quite petite, and energetic, I took to the dance floor like a fish to water.
My first evening on stage, there was an older gentleman in the front row, my guess is he was about 80, but then I was 16, so anybody over 40 looked ancient to me. Guess I must have gotten a bit carried away, in my mini skirt, with the music, and when I looked down at him, he heaved, collapsed in his chair, and died. I panicked, and ran off the stage. I thought I was responsible for what looked like his heart attack, but management assured me it wasn't his heart, it was an overdose of prune juice. My career as a go go dancer ended right there
I've never been able to look at prune juice the same way again.
A friend just made a joke about prune juice and I was reminded of my short-lived career as a go go dancer. During a summer break from high school, I ran away to the Catskills, and ended up in a resort for seniors where I worked as a busboy during the day, and a go-go girl at night. Being quite petite, and energetic, I took to the dance floor like a fish to water.
My first evening on stage, there was an older gentleman in the front row, my guess is he was about 80, but then I was 16, so anybody over 40 looked ancient to me. Guess I must have gotten a bit carried away, in my mini skirt, with the music, and when I looked down at him, he heaved, collapsed in his chair, and died. I panicked, and ran off the stage. I thought I was responsible for what looked like his heart attack, but management assured me it wasn't his heart, it was an overdose of prune juice. My career as a go go dancer ended right there
I've never been able to look at prune juice the same way again.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Santa: No Social Security Number, No Toy
Some children in Nashville this Christmas awoke to a barren Christmas tree because their parents weren't able to provide Santa with social security numbers.
What does it say about a country when two of its largest holiday gift givers, the Salvation Army's Angel Tree program, and the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots, will decline applicants who are unable to demonstrate proof of citizenship, and income, according to an article in The Tennessian.
The Angel Tree program, based in Nashville, will have distributed Christmas presents to nearly 15,000 children and seniors throughout Tennessee in response to nearly 5,000 applications, and this program that matches gifts to families in need, is not shy about its requirement to produce a social security card.
Maj. Rob Vincent, a spokesperson for the Salvation Army, insists that "it's not a matter of whether they're legal or illegal," but whether parents requesting help with their Christmas gifts can prove their members of the community. The Salvation Army, he argues, wants to be sure to address "local need." But what kind of community would deny an indigent parent's request for just enough to cover the cost of a baby doll for her three year old daughter solely because the child's grandmother can't produce a social security card?
And, the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots also has the same policy of requiring official evidence of citizenship, and proof of income eligibility before granting parents request.
There are some in high powered Washington think tanks who are cynical enough to suggest that parents may be "gaming" the system by applying to several charities for toys. They are the same folks who called for welfare reform while simultaneously lining the pockets of AIG. Well, here'a hearty Bah Humbug to those who can justify corporate fraud, yet who get out of shape because maybe, just maybe the child of an undocumented worker might be rewarded with a $10 teddy bear at Christmas. These are the same folks who often hire undocumented workers to mow their lawn, or fix their toilets, yet yell the loudest because a miniscule percentage of the millions in grants to government agencies might inadvertently wind up under somebody's Christmas tree of last resort.
To any but the most obdurate, intransigent Scrooge, the actions of the Salvation Army and the U.S. Marine Corps in depriving needy children in Nashville, and anywhere else in this nation, of Christmas are egregious especially when considering that other charities, like The United Way of Metropolitan Nashville, award millions in grants every year with no proof of citizenship requirement.
Any charity that would reject the children of immigrants at Christmas isn't worthy of the name.
What does it say about a country when two of its largest holiday gift givers, the Salvation Army's Angel Tree program, and the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots, will decline applicants who are unable to demonstrate proof of citizenship, and income, according to an article in The Tennessian.
The Angel Tree program, based in Nashville, will have distributed Christmas presents to nearly 15,000 children and seniors throughout Tennessee in response to nearly 5,000 applications, and this program that matches gifts to families in need, is not shy about its requirement to produce a social security card.
Maj. Rob Vincent, a spokesperson for the Salvation Army, insists that "it's not a matter of whether they're legal or illegal," but whether parents requesting help with their Christmas gifts can prove their members of the community. The Salvation Army, he argues, wants to be sure to address "local need." But what kind of community would deny an indigent parent's request for just enough to cover the cost of a baby doll for her three year old daughter solely because the child's grandmother can't produce a social security card?
And, the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots also has the same policy of requiring official evidence of citizenship, and proof of income eligibility before granting parents request.
There are some in high powered Washington think tanks who are cynical enough to suggest that parents may be "gaming" the system by applying to several charities for toys. They are the same folks who called for welfare reform while simultaneously lining the pockets of AIG. Well, here'a hearty Bah Humbug to those who can justify corporate fraud, yet who get out of shape because maybe, just maybe the child of an undocumented worker might be rewarded with a $10 teddy bear at Christmas. These are the same folks who often hire undocumented workers to mow their lawn, or fix their toilets, yet yell the loudest because a miniscule percentage of the millions in grants to government agencies might inadvertently wind up under somebody's Christmas tree of last resort.
To any but the most obdurate, intransigent Scrooge, the actions of the Salvation Army and the U.S. Marine Corps in depriving needy children in Nashville, and anywhere else in this nation, of Christmas are egregious especially when considering that other charities, like The United Way of Metropolitan Nashville, award millions in grants every year with no proof of citizenship requirement.
Any charity that would reject the children of immigrants at Christmas isn't worthy of the name.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Decriminalize Political Speech
In February, the Supreme Court will hear on appeal what many consider to be among the most important cases to address the constitutionality of political speech in recent times, Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project.
And, in light of the failed attempt to blow up a Northwest jetliner heading from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas day, it will be a test of the strength of the Bill of Rights, and more importantly, to see if the First Amendment will prevail.
The plaintiff in the case, Humanitarian Law Project, is a human rights group that often consults with the United Nations, and that has in the past assisted the Kurdistan Workers' Party, as well as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eela. They, along with administrative law judges and others, have had their right to free association challenged under legislation that dates back to Newt Gingrich's Contract with America, and the mid-1990's, in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing; legislation that was signed into law by then President Bill Clinton.
The "Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act" was unmistakeably every inch a bipartisan effort, and is easily recognizable as the precursor to the USA Patriot Act. The objective of AEDPA was to cut off all sources of material assistance to any groups the State Department deems to be sources of international terror.
According to Free Expression Policy Project, the measure empowers the State Department to construct a list of "foreign terrorist organizations," and criminalize any "material support" to these groups. While parts of the law were struck down several times by federal courts, plaintiffs in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project are taking legislation that has had the chilling effect of derailing the First Amendment all the way to the Supreme Court.
So, on February 23rd, the highest court in the land will get to decide whether any of the four provisions of AEDPA constitute criminal activity. The penalty for being convicted of providing material support to a State Department blacklisted group can be as much as fifteen years behind bars. The definition of terrorism is said to be simply "any actual or threatened use of a weapon against people or property."
Two years ago, an appeals court found much of the law o be "unconstitutionally vague," and it will soon be the Supreme's turn up at bat to hear a challenge to a measure that, in the words of attorney for the plaintiffs, is "so sweeping that it treats human rights advocates as criminal terrorists...and makes advocating human rights or other lawful, peaceable activity a crime simply because it is done for the benefit of, or in conjunction with, a group the Secretary of State has blacklisted."
Apart from the Carter Center, Human Rights Watch, and coalitions of sociologists and anthropologists, Humanitarian Law Project has another interesting friend.. A group calling itself "Victims of the McCarthy Era," with 32 members many of whom were either themselves blacklisted and/or incarcerated during the 1950's, or had family members blacklisted, for their guilt by association with the Communist Party, has signed onto an amicus brief, and urges that the Supreme Court follow an earlier ruling, Scales v. United States, that suggests "material support" bans must apply only to those who specifically support a group's illegal activities.
When President Obama speaks of threats posed by al Qaeda and what he calls "its affiliates," he invites not only fear and rancor, like his predecessor George W. Bush, but he's essentially comparing political organizations with corporate franchises. Surely, al Qaeda is not the terrorist equivalent of MacDonald's.
The dangers of seeing any one group as if it were an apocalyptic octapus with wide, and unambiguous tentacles, far outweigh any benefits. Any effort that has as its mission the prevention of human rights abuse, and discrimination must not be silenced in the name of making the world safe from terrorism. Indeed, to silence free speech is a form of terrorism, an act of violence against independent thought.
We urge the Supreme Court to uphold the ruling of a federal court and, in effect, nullify any legislation that is "unconstitutionally vague," that confers upon human rights activists guilt by association, and that criminalizes political speech.
And, in light of the failed attempt to blow up a Northwest jetliner heading from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas day, it will be a test of the strength of the Bill of Rights, and more importantly, to see if the First Amendment will prevail.
The plaintiff in the case, Humanitarian Law Project, is a human rights group that often consults with the United Nations, and that has in the past assisted the Kurdistan Workers' Party, as well as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eela. They, along with administrative law judges and others, have had their right to free association challenged under legislation that dates back to Newt Gingrich's Contract with America, and the mid-1990's, in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing; legislation that was signed into law by then President Bill Clinton.
The "Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act" was unmistakeably every inch a bipartisan effort, and is easily recognizable as the precursor to the USA Patriot Act. The objective of AEDPA was to cut off all sources of material assistance to any groups the State Department deems to be sources of international terror.
According to Free Expression Policy Project, the measure empowers the State Department to construct a list of "foreign terrorist organizations," and criminalize any "material support" to these groups. While parts of the law were struck down several times by federal courts, plaintiffs in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project are taking legislation that has had the chilling effect of derailing the First Amendment all the way to the Supreme Court.
So, on February 23rd, the highest court in the land will get to decide whether any of the four provisions of AEDPA constitute criminal activity. The penalty for being convicted of providing material support to a State Department blacklisted group can be as much as fifteen years behind bars. The definition of terrorism is said to be simply "any actual or threatened use of a weapon against people or property."
Two years ago, an appeals court found much of the law o be "unconstitutionally vague," and it will soon be the Supreme's turn up at bat to hear a challenge to a measure that, in the words of attorney for the plaintiffs, is "so sweeping that it treats human rights advocates as criminal terrorists...and makes advocating human rights or other lawful, peaceable activity a crime simply because it is done for the benefit of, or in conjunction with, a group the Secretary of State has blacklisted."
Apart from the Carter Center, Human Rights Watch, and coalitions of sociologists and anthropologists, Humanitarian Law Project has another interesting friend.. A group calling itself "Victims of the McCarthy Era," with 32 members many of whom were either themselves blacklisted and/or incarcerated during the 1950's, or had family members blacklisted, for their guilt by association with the Communist Party, has signed onto an amicus brief, and urges that the Supreme Court follow an earlier ruling, Scales v. United States, that suggests "material support" bans must apply only to those who specifically support a group's illegal activities.
When President Obama speaks of threats posed by al Qaeda and what he calls "its affiliates," he invites not only fear and rancor, like his predecessor George W. Bush, but he's essentially comparing political organizations with corporate franchises. Surely, al Qaeda is not the terrorist equivalent of MacDonald's.
The dangers of seeing any one group as if it were an apocalyptic octapus with wide, and unambiguous tentacles, far outweigh any benefits. Any effort that has as its mission the prevention of human rights abuse, and discrimination must not be silenced in the name of making the world safe from terrorism. Indeed, to silence free speech is a form of terrorism, an act of violence against independent thought.
We urge the Supreme Court to uphold the ruling of a federal court and, in effect, nullify any legislation that is "unconstitutionally vague," that confers upon human rights activists guilt by association, and that criminalizes political speech.
Friday, December 25, 2009
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Jane Q. Public and the Proposed Health Insurance Mandate
In an article I posted last night, "The Mandate and Massachusetts," there was the implication that requiring people in that state to carry health insurance drove them into foreclosure, or at least some have inferred that from what I wrote. So, let me be perfectly clear. What happened in Massachusetts after health reform legislation passed in April, 2006 was part of a national trend in foreclosures.
But, if you read the article closely, you'll also see that adding the cost of health care to the already overwhelming expenses of people who were marginally getting by in the first place was posited to be among the factors driving people into foreclosure, and not the only factor...not by a long shot.
When Jane Q. Public sits at her kitchen table at the end of the month confronted by a stack of bills, she will defer to what she considers most essential: rent, auto insurance, electric bill, utilities, car payment, credit card debt, and she will find herself prioritizing payments. In Massachusetts, as in other states, all too often people will try to do what they were taught was right: pay that dental bill, pay that creditor, etc., and they may find themselves choosing between paying the monthly mortgage and feeding their families.
In a state where housing costs are notoriously high, and outpace earning capacity, it's not surprising that one might find themselves with not enough money left to make the mortgage, or the rent, which is where the foreclosure, or eviction process begins. All my article suggests is that when Massachusetts mandated insurance, it became a little more challenging for Jane Q. Public to make her mortgage, and this may be a contributing factor, not the cause, of an egregious spike in homelessness in that state in the years after this legislation passed.
The plan Congress is fine tuning now, like the one in Massachusetts, will require working Americans to be responsible for buying insurance. This is called a government mandate. Some will say it's an idea whose time has come. I agree with Andy Stern, head of the Service Employees Union, that if the salary requirements are raised, or adjusted sufficiently to account for the cost of living, it's not a bad idea.
After all, a person making $50,000 a year whose only expenses are rent, food, and auto insurance should be able to spend 9% of his income on health insurance.
But, if you're going to ask a single female who earns $9 an hour, and puts in overtime so that she can have that something extra every once in awhile, who thus clocks in at $25,000--if you're going to take $240 a month away from her in monthly health insurance premiums, that's okay, too, as long as you realize that, out of her $25,000 annual salary, which works out to slightly more than $2000 a month, she has to pay federal, state, and local taxes, contribute to her unemployment and disability insurance, pay $1400 a month in rent, cover her car insurance, buy groceries, pay off the loan on her car, buy clothes, pay for gas, pay off credit card debt, etc., etc., etc. How may people ended up going into foreclosure, or being evicted because, in good conscience, they tried to pay off their credit card debt.
Let's not be stupid about this. If you're going to make something a government requirement, don't do it at a time when people are having a hard time meeting their rents and mortgages.
But, if you read the article closely, you'll also see that adding the cost of health care to the already overwhelming expenses of people who were marginally getting by in the first place was posited to be among the factors driving people into foreclosure, and not the only factor...not by a long shot.
When Jane Q. Public sits at her kitchen table at the end of the month confronted by a stack of bills, she will defer to what she considers most essential: rent, auto insurance, electric bill, utilities, car payment, credit card debt, and she will find herself prioritizing payments. In Massachusetts, as in other states, all too often people will try to do what they were taught was right: pay that dental bill, pay that creditor, etc., and they may find themselves choosing between paying the monthly mortgage and feeding their families.
In a state where housing costs are notoriously high, and outpace earning capacity, it's not surprising that one might find themselves with not enough money left to make the mortgage, or the rent, which is where the foreclosure, or eviction process begins. All my article suggests is that when Massachusetts mandated insurance, it became a little more challenging for Jane Q. Public to make her mortgage, and this may be a contributing factor, not the cause, of an egregious spike in homelessness in that state in the years after this legislation passed.
The plan Congress is fine tuning now, like the one in Massachusetts, will require working Americans to be responsible for buying insurance. This is called a government mandate. Some will say it's an idea whose time has come. I agree with Andy Stern, head of the Service Employees Union, that if the salary requirements are raised, or adjusted sufficiently to account for the cost of living, it's not a bad idea.
After all, a person making $50,000 a year whose only expenses are rent, food, and auto insurance should be able to spend 9% of his income on health insurance.
But, if you're going to ask a single female who earns $9 an hour, and puts in overtime so that she can have that something extra every once in awhile, who thus clocks in at $25,000--if you're going to take $240 a month away from her in monthly health insurance premiums, that's okay, too, as long as you realize that, out of her $25,000 annual salary, which works out to slightly more than $2000 a month, she has to pay federal, state, and local taxes, contribute to her unemployment and disability insurance, pay $1400 a month in rent, cover her car insurance, buy groceries, pay off the loan on her car, buy clothes, pay for gas, pay off credit card debt, etc., etc., etc. How may people ended up going into foreclosure, or being evicted because, in good conscience, they tried to pay off their credit card debt.
Let's not be stupid about this. If you're going to make something a government requirement, don't do it at a time when people are having a hard time meeting their rents and mortgages.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
The Mandate and Massachusetts
Now that the Senate has managed to get the 60 votes needed to pass the so-called health care reform bill, it's the perfect time to consider how a government mandate to buy insurance, or face penalties, has impacted the state on which this insurance "overhaul" has been modeled.
The Massachusetts legislature, more than three years ago, passed what then governor Mitt Romney called "universal health care," a bill requiring state residents to carry health insurance if they can afford it and, if not, pay more in state income tax.
Companies with more than ten employees were henceforth required to provide a "fair and reasonable contribution" to the premium of health insurance for employees, or face penalties, with the employer getting to decide what the words "fair" and "reasonable" mean.
It would seem that, in Massachusetts, the state has passed along the responsibility for providing health care to the employer to the employee, thus essentially "privatizing" health care.
Utilizing a market connector concept in which people price shop from a buffet of private insurance companies, the Massachusetts measure is similar to one currently under consideration in the nation's capital.
As Massachusetts may be seen as the paradigm for the health care overhaul Congress is now contemplating, it might be useful to take a quick look at some of the changes that have occurred in that state since the measure was passed in 2006.
While the foreclosure rate in 2007, nationwide, was nearly 80% higher than it was in 2006, foreclosures just outside of Boston "nearly tripled from January through September compared with the same period" in 2006, according to Boston.com. Hundreds of tenants in foreclosed buildings were evicted, or faced eviction by mortgage companies with the greatest concentration of foreclosures in lower income neighborhood. In a state with an historically expensive housing market, area home auctions hit the roof.
When forced, by state law, to buy auto insurance, faced with unwieldy rent, and the escalating cost of food, the mandate to acquire health insurance may be seen as a strong contributing factor to the sharp rise in homelessness in that state.
Granted, Massachusetts is not among the top five states when it comes to foreclosure and mortgage default, but what was an evolutionary trend nationally produced a dramatic, sudden spike in the New England state.
And, importantly, two years after its legislature approved what a former Republican governor likes to call universal health care, the Boston Globe reported the number of homeless people in Massachusetts had reached an all-time high. The demand on the mortgage payer to make their auto insurance premium, pay off their credit cards, feed and clothe their family was only exacerbated by the additional demand of having to allocate a portion of their paycheck to meet their state's mandate for health coverage.
What's more, ironically, a plan that was intended to reduce the number of people turning to hospital emergency rooms instead drove them into homeless shelters, and hotels. When considering that the official unemployment rate in Massachusetts is at 8.9%, below the national average, one can only imagine the havoc a national mandate to carry health insurance will wreak on the rest of the nation.
Reportedly, too, the Romney health care overhaul, in Massachusetts, has increased rather than decreased the overcrowding in hospital emergency rooms.
So, while Massachusetts may now brag that 99% of its residents have some kind of health insurance, it would be prudent for members of Congress, and the president, to take a long, hard look at the state's housing market, and ask -- at what expense?
With an unemployment rate that is expected to grow in the foreseeable future, this is not the time to demand that Americans help shoulder some of the government's burden in covering the uninsured by requiring they carry health insurance, or be fined. It's essential to be perfectly clear that, now more than ever, there is a difference between universal health care, and a government mandate.
Any reform that includes a mandate is reform in name only, and may ultimately prove to accomplish little more than to drive people from hospital emergency rooms into homeless shelters.
The Massachusetts legislature, more than three years ago, passed what then governor Mitt Romney called "universal health care," a bill requiring state residents to carry health insurance if they can afford it and, if not, pay more in state income tax.
Companies with more than ten employees were henceforth required to provide a "fair and reasonable contribution" to the premium of health insurance for employees, or face penalties, with the employer getting to decide what the words "fair" and "reasonable" mean.
It would seem that, in Massachusetts, the state has passed along the responsibility for providing health care to the employer to the employee, thus essentially "privatizing" health care.
Utilizing a market connector concept in which people price shop from a buffet of private insurance companies, the Massachusetts measure is similar to one currently under consideration in the nation's capital.
As Massachusetts may be seen as the paradigm for the health care overhaul Congress is now contemplating, it might be useful to take a quick look at some of the changes that have occurred in that state since the measure was passed in 2006.
While the foreclosure rate in 2007, nationwide, was nearly 80% higher than it was in 2006, foreclosures just outside of Boston "nearly tripled from January through September compared with the same period" in 2006, according to Boston.com. Hundreds of tenants in foreclosed buildings were evicted, or faced eviction by mortgage companies with the greatest concentration of foreclosures in lower income neighborhood. In a state with an historically expensive housing market, area home auctions hit the roof.
When forced, by state law, to buy auto insurance, faced with unwieldy rent, and the escalating cost of food, the mandate to acquire health insurance may be seen as a strong contributing factor to the sharp rise in homelessness in that state.
Granted, Massachusetts is not among the top five states when it comes to foreclosure and mortgage default, but what was an evolutionary trend nationally produced a dramatic, sudden spike in the New England state.
And, importantly, two years after its legislature approved what a former Republican governor likes to call universal health care, the Boston Globe reported the number of homeless people in Massachusetts had reached an all-time high. The demand on the mortgage payer to make their auto insurance premium, pay off their credit cards, feed and clothe their family was only exacerbated by the additional demand of having to allocate a portion of their paycheck to meet their state's mandate for health coverage.
What's more, ironically, a plan that was intended to reduce the number of people turning to hospital emergency rooms instead drove them into homeless shelters, and hotels. When considering that the official unemployment rate in Massachusetts is at 8.9%, below the national average, one can only imagine the havoc a national mandate to carry health insurance will wreak on the rest of the nation.
Reportedly, too, the Romney health care overhaul, in Massachusetts, has increased rather than decreased the overcrowding in hospital emergency rooms.
So, while Massachusetts may now brag that 99% of its residents have some kind of health insurance, it would be prudent for members of Congress, and the president, to take a long, hard look at the state's housing market, and ask -- at what expense?
With an unemployment rate that is expected to grow in the foreseeable future, this is not the time to demand that Americans help shoulder some of the government's burden in covering the uninsured by requiring they carry health insurance, or be fined. It's essential to be perfectly clear that, now more than ever, there is a difference between universal health care, and a government mandate.
Any reform that includes a mandate is reform in name only, and may ultimately prove to accomplish little more than to drive people from hospital emergency rooms into homeless shelters.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
The front door...
Too often one forgets the obvious:
You have to get in the front door before you can rearrange the furniture
You have to get in the front door before you can rearrange the furniture
From Michael Winship
Where Are the Snows - and Shovels - of Christmas Past?
Michael Winship
We had our first snowstorm of the winter in Manhattan this past weekend and it served to remind me that I have not actually shoveled snow in decades - the result of living in a city where other people are hired to do it for you. It once was said that the definition of a city was a place where one could keep a mistress and buy a violin; to me it's a place where someone else does the sidewalks.
This is after all, a cosmopolitan island off the coast of the eastern United States, where patrols of garbage trucks with plows attached to the front - sometimes half a dozen of them at once - scraped our streets several times during the night and following day. We even have those trucks that melt 60 tons of snow an hour and flush it into the sewers, where presumably the alligators who live down there are
going, "What the...?"
It wasn't always like this - four decades ago, in February 1969, 15 inches of snow fell on New York one Sunday and the city was totally paralyzed. Nearly 40 percent of our snow removal gear wasn't working properly because of poor maintenance. The borough of Queens was especially hard hit, with neighborhoods unplowed for days and no bus service or garbage pick-up. Mayor John Lindsay was booed as he tried to tour the streets.
That winter, I was just finishing high school and shoveling snow was still an important, if not just about the only part of my physical regimen. As the season began, there were a couple of tiny rituals in my family that were observed at the beginning of each December: phoning Mr. Witherspoon to ask permission to use his hill for sledding (a formality - it was always granted) and negotiating a contract for shoveling the snow from the sidewalk and driveway of our neighbors across the street.
This was slightly more difficult, as the neighbors, an older woman and her daughter, were perceived by we kids as somewhat crabby, although the daughter, who was a nurse, impressed me mightily one summer afternoon when she deftly flushed with a large syringe of water a bug that had flown into my little sister's ear.
A deal was made - five dollars for the entire winter - shoveling, scraping, salting. A paltry sum by today's standards; hell, a paltry sum by 1969 standards, but we were neighbors and this was what you were supposed to do. And of course, this was in addition to shoveling out our own home, which was performed gratis because we knew what was good for us.
It does seem as if there was more snow back then. Of course, in upstate New York, we had snow like southern California has almost constant sunshine. One winter when I was small, I remember seeing helicopters - a rarity then - dropping feed to snowbound cattle. And there were times the snow was so deep that someone from the sheriff's office would arrive at our house on a snowmobile to ferry my pharmacist father to his drugstore to fill emergency prescriptions.
Christmas seems different now, too, especially in this city. Two weekends ago, my sister was in town and she, my girlfriend and I went down to the Wall Street area where multiple Santa Clauses in various states of ho-ho-hilarity and inebriation slowly surrounded us. This, we learned, was SantaCon, an annual event of recent years described on its official Web site as "a not-for-profit, non-political, non-religious & non-logical Santa Claus convention, attended for absolutely no reason."
Although the organizers deny it, what it seems to have become is a glorified pub crawl, amusing at first, but a little intimidating as the red suits and white beards numbers grew in legion and sobriety steadily diminished, reminiscent of that old saying, "It's all fun and games until someone starts resisting arrest."
We retreated to the South Street Seaport where carolers from the Big Apple Chorus were serenading shoppers and sightseers. As they swung into "Jingle Bell Rock," this, too, triggered teenage memories.
Late each Christmas Eve, a bunch of us would gather, some with our band instruments from high school - a trumpet or two, a clarinet, a saxophone and trombone. We'd pile into a couple of automobiles and make the rounds of our small town, singing and playing carols: "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen," "Deck the Halls," "O Come All Ye Faithful," "Silent Night."
We'd get out of the cars and crunch through the snowdrifts to our destinations; the homes of friends, mostly, and a couple of nursing homes.
The final stop was the county jail, where men would spend Christmas in cells for drunk driving or domestic disputes or non-payment of child support. As we performed, I always hoped we'd hear some voice from within, responding to our tinny renditions, like the old man in Dylan Thomas' A Child's Christmas in Wales, who answers the carolers' "Good King Wenceslas" in "a small, dry, eggshell voice from the other side of the door: a small dry voice through the keyhole."
But we never did.
Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program
Bill Moyers Journal, which airs Friday night on PBS.
Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog at www.pbs.org/moyers
Michael Winship
We had our first snowstorm of the winter in Manhattan this past weekend and it served to remind me that I have not actually shoveled snow in decades - the result of living in a city where other people are hired to do it for you. It once was said that the definition of a city was a place where one could keep a mistress and buy a violin; to me it's a place where someone else does the sidewalks.
This is after all, a cosmopolitan island off the coast of the eastern United States, where patrols of garbage trucks with plows attached to the front - sometimes half a dozen of them at once - scraped our streets several times during the night and following day. We even have those trucks that melt 60 tons of snow an hour and flush it into the sewers, where presumably the alligators who live down there are
going, "What the...?"
It wasn't always like this - four decades ago, in February 1969, 15 inches of snow fell on New York one Sunday and the city was totally paralyzed. Nearly 40 percent of our snow removal gear wasn't working properly because of poor maintenance. The borough of Queens was especially hard hit, with neighborhoods unplowed for days and no bus service or garbage pick-up. Mayor John Lindsay was booed as he tried to tour the streets.
That winter, I was just finishing high school and shoveling snow was still an important, if not just about the only part of my physical regimen. As the season began, there were a couple of tiny rituals in my family that were observed at the beginning of each December: phoning Mr. Witherspoon to ask permission to use his hill for sledding (a formality - it was always granted) and negotiating a contract for shoveling the snow from the sidewalk and driveway of our neighbors across the street.
This was slightly more difficult, as the neighbors, an older woman and her daughter, were perceived by we kids as somewhat crabby, although the daughter, who was a nurse, impressed me mightily one summer afternoon when she deftly flushed with a large syringe of water a bug that had flown into my little sister's ear.
A deal was made - five dollars for the entire winter - shoveling, scraping, salting. A paltry sum by today's standards; hell, a paltry sum by 1969 standards, but we were neighbors and this was what you were supposed to do. And of course, this was in addition to shoveling out our own home, which was performed gratis because we knew what was good for us.
It does seem as if there was more snow back then. Of course, in upstate New York, we had snow like southern California has almost constant sunshine. One winter when I was small, I remember seeing helicopters - a rarity then - dropping feed to snowbound cattle. And there were times the snow was so deep that someone from the sheriff's office would arrive at our house on a snowmobile to ferry my pharmacist father to his drugstore to fill emergency prescriptions.
Christmas seems different now, too, especially in this city. Two weekends ago, my sister was in town and she, my girlfriend and I went down to the Wall Street area where multiple Santa Clauses in various states of ho-ho-hilarity and inebriation slowly surrounded us. This, we learned, was SantaCon, an annual event of recent years described on its official Web site as "a not-for-profit, non-political, non-religious & non-logical Santa Claus convention, attended for absolutely no reason."
Although the organizers deny it, what it seems to have become is a glorified pub crawl, amusing at first, but a little intimidating as the red suits and white beards numbers grew in legion and sobriety steadily diminished, reminiscent of that old saying, "It's all fun and games until someone starts resisting arrest."
We retreated to the South Street Seaport where carolers from the Big Apple Chorus were serenading shoppers and sightseers. As they swung into "Jingle Bell Rock," this, too, triggered teenage memories.
Late each Christmas Eve, a bunch of us would gather, some with our band instruments from high school - a trumpet or two, a clarinet, a saxophone and trombone. We'd pile into a couple of automobiles and make the rounds of our small town, singing and playing carols: "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen," "Deck the Halls," "O Come All Ye Faithful," "Silent Night."
We'd get out of the cars and crunch through the snowdrifts to our destinations; the homes of friends, mostly, and a couple of nursing homes.
The final stop was the county jail, where men would spend Christmas in cells for drunk driving or domestic disputes or non-payment of child support. As we performed, I always hoped we'd hear some voice from within, responding to our tinny renditions, like the old man in Dylan Thomas' A Child's Christmas in Wales, who answers the carolers' "Good King Wenceslas" in "a small, dry, eggshell voice from the other side of the door: a small dry voice through the keyhole."
But we never did.
Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program
Bill Moyers Journal, which airs Friday night on PBS.
Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog at www.pbs.org/moyers
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