Our Bleeding Hearts Might Have Saved Us

Today marks the anniversary of the Dread Fiend Trump's official entry into politics, not as dog catcher, not even as city clerk, but as President of these United States.

A year has passed and as much as we've spit and hollered, as often as we've watched the evidence of corruption pile up, Donald Trump is still president. He is every bit as bad at the job as we imagined. You might even say he's far worse. But on the bright side, North Korea hasn't nuked us yet, the Grand Canyon hasn't been filled in and paved over, and neither ermine robes nor jeweled crowns have replaced Polo shirts and MAGA caps.

Court jesters are filling the Capital and kowtowing is back in vogue but so far no guillotines have appeared in any town squares. Nevertheless, good people are being banished from the realm by the thousands--families torn apart, falsely accused of unworthiness--and countries that were once our friends now look on us with pity and/or disgust. Many of them can't stop laughing.

We're in a fine mess, with no rescue in sight. If there be heroes, they're mighty scarce and awfully damned quiet.

The Democrats, except for a gallant few, are performing their usual cowardly moves. They sit behind the barricades yelling and shaking their fists, but when it comes to doing battle--twisting arms and bloodying noses--they're outta there.

So here's a radical thought: Let the liberals do it. Give us a chance to show how it could be done.

Liberals, you say, are the classic political nerds, not worth bothering with unless it's to give us our daily wedgies or noogies. Quaint, naive little do-gooders lost in a world of ruthless cruelty without weapons adequate enough to bruise a flea. (That's what they said about Hobbits, too, you know.)

In the 1980s, around about the time the actor Ronald Reagan,friendly Midwestern liberal turned hard-hearted California conservative, was solidly in there as POTUS, the word went out that liberals--those ridiculous "for the people" gadflies--were ruining the country by helping too many undeserving, impoverished leeches, by insisting that workers be represented by hard-nosed unions, by tightening, enforcing, or inventing regulations that were or would be anathema to the gold-plated entities they targeted.

It wasn't hard to convince the many millions that health, wealth, and happiness could only come from a government without teeth, from the benevolence of ridiculously powerful corporations, and, if all else failed, from that venerable standby, Old Testament God.

All that stood in the way were those damned Liberals.

Liberals became such pariahs an entire bloc jumped ship and took on a new name: Progressives. (I would describe them for you here, but I admit I don't know the difference. I hear they're mainly friendly.)

But what we liberals have that others don't are hearts that gush blood whenever injustice rears it's massive, ugly head. We see a bleeding heart as a badge of honor. The same with tears. We cry when things move us, and we don't hide from our emotions. Our anger stems from compassion, our outrage roars at cruelty. We wear our hearts on our sleeves and we don't care.

Liberals have a long history of getting things done. We pulled the entire country out of a great depression by hiring our citizens to do meaningful busy-work, by using our charitable might, by giving dignity and hope back to a country mired in poverty and hopelessness.

We built the unions and gave workers a voice. We put an end to child labor. We fought to give every adult citizen the right to vote, no matter gender or color. We helped the poor and the elderly by creating Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. We passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the Clean Air act, and the Clean Water Act. We ended a recession that nearly destroyed the middle class.

We did all that and more against the wishes--and the might--of fat cats and right wingers who sorely wanted what we're heading for today: a country ruled by non-contributing despots whose only interests are power, greed, and self-preservation.

We are not that country and we never will be. The Trump phenomenon is an anomaly, destined for the history books, a long chapter on how close we came to letting our democracy die.

We're still a majority of the good and, thankfully, most of us aren't ashamed to show it. It's our time now and there's much to do. They're out there waiting for us and they have heavy weapons. The obstacles are scary and formidable.

And here we go.
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A personal note: Today also marks this blog's ninth anniversary. I wrote my first blog post on  January 20, 2009, on the afternoon of Barack Obama's first Inauguration, celebrating hope and sanity with a smidgen of skepticism. No miracles expected, none received.

(Cross-posted at Crooks & Liars)

She Shouts

Bob Woodward was on Morning Joe today talking about Hillary Clinton, and in the course of the conversation he said, "I think a lot of it with Hillary Clinton has to do with style and delivery, oddly enough,. She shouts. There is something unrelaxed about the way she is communicating."

 Joe Scarborough had to agree: "Last night I was watching her and I said to myself, has nobody told her that the microphone works?  Because she always keeps it up here." (Hand held high)

So then the convo moved to Hillary's trust issue and how she really didn't win much in Iowa because the young kids don't go for her. But Woodward, ever the Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter, brought it all back by saying, "I'm sorry to dwell on the tone issue, but there's something here where Hillary Clinton suggests she's almost not comfortable with herself. And, you know, self acceptance is something you communicate on television."

To which Joe brought up Margaret Thatcher and how she could skew anyone by "keeping it to a whisper".  And Ronald Reagan.  No shouting.  Not like Hillary, anyway.  (There was more. It's all here.  If you care.)

Well!  I put on my blogging frock and tilted my dainty little fingers over my lovely, shiny keyboard (No more cookie crumbs! I cleaned it yesterday.) and began looking for the words that would singe the damn paint off of my stylishly hued walls.  I was mad!

So there I was, fingers poised, at the ready, when a radical thought entered my almost-perfect-if-not-for-the-bed-head:  I've never cared about anything Bob Woodward has said before.  Why the hell should I care now?  And Scarborough?  Same thing, only stronger.

We're going to have months of this--her tone, her voice, her pantsuits, her hair, her age, her attempts at seeming human--so we need to decide early on whether it's worth it to waste time on silly distractions.  Who really cares?

She's a woman; I'm a woman.  Hillary has done things and now she's running for President of the United States. There the similarity ends, so if I'm going to support her for the presidency I have to stop wasting time defending her womanhood and start defending her ability to do the job.

So I will not care who insults her personally any more.  She has bigger fish to fry.  Hillary has known this for a long time.  I'm just now getting it.

I'm in awe of how much I'm learning from her.


(Cross-posted at Dagblog , The Broad Side and Crooks and Liars)

Hey, Democrats, You Want To Win? Try Being Democrats

The mid-term elections are less than a month away and there's a good chance the Republicans will hold the House and possibly take the Senate.  Stunning as that probability possibility is, considering the shoddy business the Republicans have been engaged in ever since their guy, Mitt Romney, lost to Barack Obama, the truth is, it looks like half the country's voters are still more than willing to vote for that particular party.  

You hear that, Democrats? The Republicans could win.  I mean, WIN.

Here's the part that really irks me:  The Republicans get off on making things terrible for the rest of us and if we let them win again, there's no chance they'll even say "thank you".  First they'll gloat and then they'll make us pay for being so stupid as to let them win. They're out to hurt us and we have a history of making it easy for them.

Can we stop doing that?  Please?    

Don't even get me started on the Supreme Court and Citizens United, the Koch Brothers' factions, insane-to-the-point-of-hilarious-if-you-find-that-sort-of-thing-funny gerrymandering, corporate vs. social welfare, insurance-mandated health care, tax breaks for the rich, the attempted murder of public education, the killing off of unions in order to keep labor poor and grateful for just any job, the ongoing crusade to keep women barefoot and on their knees,  the effort to pretend hungry kids aren't really hungry--not to mention the sanctioned takeover of our airwaves so that only the rich can survive to tell their stories.  All brought to us by the Republicans.

We're just under a month away from the elections and once again, sorry to say, we Democrats have failed to make our case.  We have a platform that says the major focus for Democrats is, very simply, to ensure equality, to lift up the lower and middle classes, to keep our bodies healthy and our environment safe, to never be Republicans.

We're humanitarians (definition: concerned with or seeking to promote human welfare), which means we're liberals, and we used to be proud of it.   Not anymore.  We've become pathetically careful about blowing our own horns lest someone think we're bragging.  Or smug.  Or condescending.  Or--oh my God--elitist.  We fall for that shit every time.

We're such suckers.  No wonder so many people have lost respect for us.  During the Reagan years the Republicans deliberately built the lie that it's bad to be good and damned if we didn't fall for it.  Even those of us who knew better.  (One small example:  Some of us dropped the word "Liberal" because people were making fun of us.  A dark moment in our history, but one I won't forget.)

Suddenly the Teflon president could do no wrong and anyone who went against him--including the last of the investigative press--were deemed doltish.  Arrogant.  And just not nice.  So because we got suckered into feeling bad about doing good stuff, they got away with demeaning anyone on welfare (welfare queens in Cadillacs), with calling ketchup a vegetable in order to save money on poor kids' school lunches, with convincing workers they didn't need unions, with starting the ball rolling on outsourcing, and with moving the country Rightward when moving to the Right meant moving backward, not forward. 

It's not that Republicans don't care about people--some--maybe even a lot of them--sincerely do.  It's that their method of "helping" is to keep on boosting the rich, buying their phony claims against the government (that's us) that taking away those awful tax burdens and pesky regulations would save us all, because, you know, Trickle Down theory.  (Because Ronald Reagan SAID it would work, that's why.)  But as long as we let the wealthy build their fortunes in this country without having to share it here, there is no chance it will ever trickle down.  It can't and won't work that way.  They take but they don't give back, and they're as proud of that little coup as the voters are oblivious to it.

 Their buddies in the House and Senate know that as long as they keep the hot-button issues like abortion, religious "persecution", gun rights, and gay marriage going, they'll get the votes.  The money will keep rolling in for those so-called public servants, they'll get to keep their taxpayer-paid jobs and, if they stay in office long enough, they'll get--courtesy of us--a dandy lifetime retirement package, safe from the vagaries of depressions, recessions, or greed.  No matter what they do to us, they'll have it made and we'll go on paying them.  For the rest of their lives.  Knowing, of course, that they will never return the favor.  Because we're suckers and they're not.

We Democrats are here to put working people first.  Our job as Democrats is to work tirelessly to keep people safe, to build a strong middle class, and to put the people who ruined our economy out of business.   And if we can't bring ourselves to do that, we should at least have the good sense to stop rewarding them.

I'm worried about my party.  Our representatives aren't listening to us.  Some Democratic politicians are breaking away, on the lookout for better friends.  I, on the other hand--I'm on the lookout for better politicians.  Politicians are elected to represent the party that supports them.  We, the Democratic voters, are the party.  Our politicians are temporary and expendable.  Our party is, or should be, forever. 

I've been a Democrat for multiple decades--so many, you could say I'm entrenched.  So when elected men and women who say they're Democrats don't act like Democrats, I take it personally.  I know what I am and they're not it.

Democrats are not Republicans.  Democrats lean liberal.  (Republicans, you might have noticed, don't.)  Democrats are Democrats because we believe in people, not corporations.  Corporations are not now and never have been people, and Dem politicians should be screaming their heads off over that one.  Five members of the Supreme Court have opened the doors to allowing those with the most money to own our country.  That's nuts.  We Democrats are the only ones who might be in a position to change that, but we have to win elections first.

So listen up, politicians:  If you don't know (or don't care) that being a Democrat means you're expected to lean liberal/progressive, then do us a favor and get out.  Stop pretending you're one of us.  We have work to do and you're not helping.  We need universal health care, strong unions, smooth-running social programs, massive infrastructure funding, the dehumanization of corporations, and an end to deadly trillion-dollar wars.

The people who caused this mess need to be held accountable.  If you think nothing can be done, you're not one of us.  We don't need you.  We need tough people who don't shrink from stupid insults or fall for false promises.  The Republicans are our enemy and they're comfortable in that role.  We can't reason with them or force them to compromise, because they like things the way they are.  They get paid big bucks to keep it this way.  And honestly, Dems, six years of unrelenting obstruction and recalcitrance should be proof enough that they're serious about wanting to destroy us.  What else could they possibly do to convince you?

So just stop, please.  Take a breath.  You're Democrats.  Act like you're proud of it.


(Cross-posted at Dagblog and Alan Colmes' Liberaland )

Medicare and Obamacare: Same Old Story

Note:  Thanks to Alan Colmes, I am now a regular contributor on his website, Liberaland.  He posted this piece this morning, so if you're interested in reading the complete piece it continues over there.  Thanks.
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In the next town over from us the recycling station is in a huge semi-trailer.  You have to climb six narrow metal steps to get up into it, but there is an aisle you can walk down and there are huge open boxes in which to throw your stuff.

The beauty of it is that while I’m dropping off my own recyclables, I can dig through the newspaper and magazine bins to see what’s there for the taking.  Through the years we’ve found some fascinating reading, some of it as current as yesterday, but last week we found a treasure trove:  Seventeen Consumer Reports magazines, ranging from1965 to 1980.

What struck me as I read through them was how much actual watchdogging went on within those pages; and what lengths they went to explain their findings. Page after page of small print, as if they actually anticipated that their readers would want to take the time to read it all. (No internet, no cable. I get it. But still. . .people read this stuff.  They read it.)

Back in June, 1966, their headline story was about the new Medicare law taking effect in July. The law was complicated.  Every aspect of health insurance, hospitalizations, physician and pharmacy services, and medical goods had to be considered.  Nothing like it had ever been done on such a large scale before. The Government was poring an estimated $3 billion plus into it during the first year alone. Who would pay for what?  Who would gain the most?  Who would lose the most?  (Sound familiar?)

(Continue here. . .)

The Problem with Unions? They're not Corporations

WARNING: It's Labor Day and I'm feeling the love for labor, so what follows will be totally biased and in no way fair or balanced.  (If you've been wondering what fair and balanced really means, go ask your two-year-old.  It'll make as much sense as any other definition you've ever heard, but it'll sound so much better coming from the mouths of babes.)

Way back in 2010 when the Supreme Court said yes, indeedy, corporations are people, too, it started a whole new revolution in this country.  If corporations are people then a government of the people, by the people, and for the people takes on a whole new meaning.

It turns everything we thought about our government, our constitution, and our rights as citizens upside down.  It's as if that one edict from the highest court in the land didn't just water down the rights of actual human individuals, it gave permission to get really creative with applications of that wacky whopper.

If the most important court in the land could have the last word on the cockamamie notion that corporations could be seen as people, rumor has it that the Republicans, through their surrogates the Koch Brothers, the U.S Chamber of Commerce, FreedomWorks, the Tea Party, and--why not?--the Religious Right, are thinking, Okay! Let's turn that around and push the equally nutty notion that unions aren't people. See how that plays.

 And as we've seen, it plays the way it has always played.  There is a move out there to blame unions for everything Big Business did to the workers in this country. Depressions are notorious for throwing huge segments of a country's population out of work (so too, outsourcing) but somehow, in this depression, the unions--those organizations in business to represent workers--are blamed for everything from mass unemployment to higher health costs to gas rising over $4 a gallon.  They've painted union members as an uppity class with the nerve to think $8.50 an hour is demeaning.  They ought to be happy they even have jobs....

It's the 1800s to the 1980s all over again. (In 1835, mill kids from 8 to 18 in Paterson, NJ  went on strike for a shortening of their work day from 13 hours to 11, six days a week. They made anywhere from 45 cents to $2 a week, depending on their ages. (They ended up getting 11 1/2 hours, with a cut in pay.)  The papers of the day blamed everyone but the factory owners, from the greedy parents of the little workers, to outside agitators looking for trouble, to the kids themselves, who were "well taken care of and happy" and had nothing to complain about.  Sound familiar?)

Girl working in textile mill

For every successful strike (See Bread and Roses), there were hundreds that sucked the blood out of the workers, their families and their communities, with nothing gained in the end.  We've been there, we've done that; the struggle for recognition was necessary, it was painful, it was over.  And now it's back.

(See US labor history timeline here.  It's not complete (they missed the 1913 Upper Peninsula copper mine strike, for example) but if you can skim it and still manage to miss how unions have changed the lives of workers for the better, there's probably a re-run of "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" somewhere on TV.  Go for it.)

The most effective way to vanquish an enemy is to render them less than human.  If the powermongers can convince the armies of the night that the people they're destroying are at the bottom of the humanity pit they're on their way to winning the battle.

1913 Copper Mine Strike, Calumet, Michigan.  The One Man Machine was a mine drill dubbed "The Widowmaker".

 It used to be the factory rats who got the brunt of it (they, the lazy drunken union-protected potheads), but since our factories have virtually disappeared, the union-busters had to go elsewhere.  No surprise, they went to the last bastion of organized labor, the public service sector.  (An effort already started in 1981, when Ronald Reagan fired nearly 13,000 air traffic controllers belonging to the union known as Patco for striking illegally.)
 
What's unprecedented today is the realization that an entire political party has joined the battle against unions.

What's baffling is the wrath against teachers and the neglect of the needs of cops and firefighters.

What's frightening is the near-death of collective bargaining, the only working class safety net.

What's needed again is the passion of our predecessors for enforcing the wants, needs and rights of the laborers in this country  Without that passion the power-mongers win.  We've fought too hard and given up too much to watch the gains we've made just dry up and blow away, disappearing into the air as if they never happened.

If corporations are people, the workers are not the parasites, but the heart, sinew and bones. If our government is the people, ditto: Heart, sinew, bones.  Never let them forget that.

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Had to share this. I'll bet there's not a Republican today who'll own this.  Talk about shameful!

Anti-government candidate: Oxymoron or Just Plain Moron?

At his 1981 inauguration, [Ronald Reagan] voiced his simple revolutionary credo: "Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem."  That remark was prescient, although not in the sense that Reagan intended. His naive faith in the private sector's capacity to regulate itself, along with his disdain for many of the necessary functions of the modern state, allowed cronies and crooks to flourish. Inept government, corrupt government and cynical government became severe problems during his tenure, leaving fiscal wreckage that remained for many years after he returned to private life.                  Joe Conason,  "Reagan without Sentimentality"

Hope for the corporates, change for the workers--
and downhill ever since.

It's one thing to want to win a spot in congress in order to change the government.  Wanting better government is a fine and noble calling, and more power to ya'll.  But it takes colossal chutzpah to go after a job where your salary and perks are paid for by the same people whose government you're out to destroy.

We have a government in place, for better or for worse, because we the people are doing our share to keep big government going.  Big government is big because we are a big country.  We've seen what happens when big government is undermined and/or watered down.  It becomes tasty carrion for Big Vultures to feed on, and they won't stop until they're down to bloody bones.

Rand Paul, the libertarian running for a Republican senatorial seat in Kentucky, tells his Tea Party followers, "Capitalism is freedom, we've come to take back our government".  That kind of Gekko talk is building momentum among the Limbaugh/Beck/Palin/ crowd, even though they haven't yet explained what it means to "take back our government".  Take it back to when?  And give it to whom?  Which of the Tea Party heroes is equipped to get us out of this mess?  How will Smaller Government do it?

Last week Sarah Palin backed Clint Didier, a Washington state Tea Party candidate for senate who calls the federal government "a predator" and sees public spending as a "Marxist utopia".  I'm betting Palin, in her rah-rah speech, forgot to mention that over the last 15 years the rabidly anti-government Didier has collected almost $300,000 in Federal farm subsidies.  I'm betting neither one of them consider that little gift from the tax-payers an entitlement. 

At the supposed heart of all the anti-government caterwauling is our astounding deficit.  The truth is, it is totally astounding.  Even I, a complete ignoramus when it comes to budget numbers, know a monster  when I see one.  It's terrifying.  So when those Tea Party greenhorns yak on about how they're going to change things, I want to know exactly how they're going to do it.  What magic plan do they have for altering the course of this out-of-control projectile called SOL America and bringing it back down to earth?  Give it over to private industry?  Isn't that how we got here?  So if not private industry, what's left?

Oh, anti-G people, you're not gonna want to hear this, but. . .

Big government.  They looked the other way when the marauders were laying waste, and now they're left to rebuild our villages (after they've cleaned up a massive oil disaster perpetrated and perpetuated by those same interests who would love to be joining you in your crusade against authority).  They're going to have to do it by re-regulating, by in-sourcing, by creating life-sustaining jobs for Americans, and by assisting the people most affected by the economic downturn.  If that means smacking down a few bankers or forcing corporations to play fair, it won't be the end of the world.  The big guys got greedy and they blew it.  Now they have to play nice.  We can't have people out of work and out of food and out of homes and out of options.  This is America.

 We the people have to take top priority, and you the Tea Partiers have to get your priorities straight.  You can't, for instance, still have control of your taxes once you've paid them.  (If we could, mine would go to free clinics and food banks and homeless shelters--those socialistic necessities now currently swamped and overwhelmed because of America's refusal to end its love affair with Corporatist Bad Boys.)

If you've got gripes, join the club. We've all got gripes. But be mindful that your Tea Party movement, giving succor to the vicious, paranoid rantings of the Limbaughs, Becks, Bachmanns and Palins of the country, also eggs on the hate groups, trained and ready and itching for a reason to do bodily harm.

Do us all a favor and think about who you're actually choosing to run things around here. If your candidate's main qualification is a clever way of expressing his or her hatred for the government, just remember--in America that would be you.

Ramona
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It's Official - Goldman Sachs harbors and nurtures Creeps and Crooks. But we love the rich, so lay off.

The financial crisis has unveiled a new set of public villains—corrupt corporate capitalists who leveraged their connections in government for their own personal profit. During the Clinton and Bush administrations, many of these schemers were worshiped as geniuses, heroes or icons of American progress. But today we know these opportunists for what they are: Deregulatory hacks hellbent on making a profit at any cost.

Zach Carter, Alternet, 5/13/10

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In his superb Alternet blog this morning, Zach Carter published his Top Ten list of America's most corrupt capitalists.  Not surprisingly, almost all of them have had or still have substantial ties to Goldman Sachs.   And equally not surprising, even while Carter exposes them and dazzles us with the length and breadth of their successful efforts to corrupt everything within yodeling distance of their corporate grasp,  the worshippers of their Fat Cat sugar daddies are, as Carter described yesterday, out there defending their good name. 

There are plenty of people roaming these great states who would have us believe the Goldman Sachs types are simply honest brokers who made a few--okay, pretty big--mistakes, but they're all family men with little, chirpy mouths to feed and we're all liberal, progressive, bambi-loving, tree-hugging, welfare-grabbing, anti-embryo, pro-intellectual, socialistic, communistic meanies if we can't see that. (Blankfein didn't say that, of course, but he didn't have to, what with all the vociferous toadies out there who will do it for him.)

But thankfully, Andrew Cuomo isn't one of them.  Cuomo, son of my hero, Mario Cuomo, is New York state's Attorney General.  He's out to get those guys, and it's not just lip service.  They know that, and they'll go after him with a vengeance.  They already have.  But nothing beats the scope of the Goldman Sackers for raiding and pillaging, and no amount of self-righteous diversion is suddenly going to turn them into grateful recipients of the E Pluribus Unum Award.  They deserve every justifiable take-down our few brave heroes are attempting.  ("Attempting" is the operative word here.  "Accomplishing" would be so much more satisfying, but we know from past experience how likely that is.  One look at the latest hand-slap from Congress proves that the proof is in the pudding.  Looky here:  "As the executives testified, Goldman Sachs was the only stock among 79 financial companies that gained in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. The stock rose $1.01 to $153.04 as of 5:04 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.  Goldman Sachs, the most profitable securities firm in Wall Street history, was sued for fraud earlier this month by the Securities and Exchange Commission on a similar deal. The company contests the claim.")

Now, okay, in this paragraph I should be pulling this all together and making my point.  But the truth is, I know nothing about finances or financial transactions, or the reasons for booms or busts, or why those guys look like freakin' nuts down there on the trading floor.  I'm not expected to, since I'm not in the business, but what scares the living daydreams out of me is that way too often even the so-called Wall Street experts don't seem to have a clue.  That happened last week, when, for 20 minutes or so,  the market went into "Flash Crash" mode and we caught a glimpse of just how insane the grand scheme of all capitalism all the time really is.  (I'm sending "Flash Crash" to the word banishment people at LSSU.  Amidst all this doom and gloom, they're still having fun with reading:  "The [2010] list this year is a 'teachable moment' conducted free of 'tweets,'" said a Word Banishment spokesman who was "chillaxin'" for the holidays. "'In these economic times', purging our language of 'toxic assets' is a 'stimulus' effort that's 'too big to fail.'")

Almost finished, but I can't leave here without mentioning Ronald Reagan.  He started this, and there was nothing heroic about it.  We wouldn't be in this fix if it weren't for Ronald Reagan making "deregulation"  and "anti-government" household words.  A president who usurps his duties to the people in order to build a golden throne for corporate fat cats is no hero.  (A president who follows along in order to make friends or hide transgressions is no better--before you accuse me of forgetting about Bill Clinton's blind eye toward outsourcing and union-bashing.  And neither is a president who salts his cabinet with the same money people who were in on this without expecting some good-works penance from them.)

Deregulation.  Anti-government.  The best way to banish those words is to banish the practices.  We need regulation.   We need good, all-encompassing government.  And we need to do more to the Gold men than to try and embarrass them in public.  They don't embarrass.  They don't do anything but hoard money.  And they won't do anything for us until we make them.

Let's make them.  I'm tired of having to watch people beg for jobs while the undeserving flip us the bird by closing off the money sources to create them.

That much I do understand.

Ramona

Square Deal, New Deal, Fair Deal, Raw Deal: What's it gonna be?

Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.
 - Theodore Roosevelt

One thing is sure. We have to do something. We have to do the best we know how at the moment... If it doesn't turn out right, we can modify it as we go along.
 - Franklin D. Roosevelt

You can always amend a big plan, but you can never expand a little one. I don't believe in little plans. I believe in plans big enough to meet a situation which we can't possibly foresee now.
- Harry S Truman

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In 1904, Teddy Roosevelt used the term "square deal" to push the quaint notion that no one business or individual or organization should have an unfair advantage over the other.  He was a trust-buster who wasn't anti-trust. All trusts were not bad, they just needed watching.  "Somehow or other," he said, "we shall have to work out methods of controlling the big corporations without paralyzing the energies of the business community...".  
 
After Upton Sinclair wrote "The Jungle", exposing horrific conditions in the meat-packing industry, TR  pushed and passed the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act.  The conservative Republicans fought against it.
 
When railroad rates went skyward, Roosevelt endorsed the Hepburn Act, which gave the Interstate Commerce Commission the authority to set rates.  The conservative Republicans gutted the bill and gave more power to the courts to "fix" the problem.

The Employer Liability Act of 1906 was put forward to address worker injuries after 27,000 workers died in job related accidents in 1904 and 50,000 job-related accidents were reported in New York factories alone. It was declared unconstitutional by--guess who?  The Republicans. (A revised, watered-down version finally passed in 1908.)

"In the vast and complicated mechanism of our modern civilized life, the dominant note is the note of industrialism, and the relations of capital and labor, and especially of organized capital and organized labor, to each other, and to the public at large, come second in importance only to the intimate questions of family life. . . I believe that under modern industrial conditions it is often necessary, and even where not necessary it is yet often wise, that there should be organization of labor in order better to secure the rights of the individual wage-worker. All encouragement should be given to any such organization so long as it is conducted with a due and decent regard for the rights of others "  (TR, State of  the Union address, 1904

Guess who hated that idea?  The Republicans.

When Teddy's cousin Eleanor's husband, Franklin D. Roosevelt, became president a quarter of a century later, he took many of Teddy's Square Deal ideas and expanded them into the Depression era New Deal.  In FDR's First Hundred Days, he was a human whirlwind, sweeping through emergency reforms and programs that did far more than simply putting Republican-endorsed bandaids on gaping wounds.  He regulated the stock markets, abandoned the gold standard, guaranteed bank deposits, put tight banking controls in place, created federal jobs programs, gave immediate aid to the poor, and approved the legalization of 3.2 beer. 

Guess who fought him every step of the way?  The Republicans.  (Okay, maybe not the beer idea.)

When Harry S Truman, believing that the government should be in the business of guaranteeing economic opportunity and social stability, tried to build on the New Deal with a program called the Fair Deal, he ran into--guess what?--"fierce political opposition from conservative legislators determined to reduce the role of government".  The G.I Bill passed, as did de-segregation in the military and anti-discrimination in Federal programs, a slight minimum wage increase, and some expansion of Social Security and housing programs, but by the end of his second term most of his 21-point program, including national health insurance, unfair employment practices, greater unemployment compensation and housing assistance, had been decimated by--guess who?  The Republicans.

Still, through the 50s, 60s and 70s, union membership--and wages and benefits--grew, and regulations and watchdogging kept banking and businesses in check.  They were our golden years of prosperity.  We had a working class.  We had a middle class.  We also had a wealthy class who weren't suffering in the least.

Then Ronald Reagan, he of the boyish grin and nonsensical motto ("The best government is no government"), became the leader of the country, and for eight long years he worked at disproving his own point.  He and his cohorts worked diligently at stripping every last reform and regulation that might put a stopper on the activities of Big Business.  It took a long time for the Republicans to accomplish all they wanted to do, but by the end of George W. Bush's eight years, in 2009, Big Business had no fear.  They were running the country, at long last.

Barack Obama and most of the Democrats thought they could change all that.  By Inauguration Day, 2009,  it should have been clear to anyone with eyes that the Government of Big Business was a complete and total failure.  Renegade banking policies exposed as corporate theft, jobs gone overseas never to be seen again, unemployment and underemployment at record levels, sick people dying without health care, houses that used to be homes sitting empty, tent cities popping up. . .the evidence is slapping us in the face even today, trying without success to bring us to our senses.

We cannot survive without emergency governmental programs patterned after the Square Deal, the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the Great Society--people programs that give aid and comfort to the many who so desperately need them. We cannot exist as a powerhouse without busting the stranglehold of the corporatocracy and returning democracy to its rightful place.  

But let's face it:  Every governmental program that benefits the people at large is obstructed or defeated by the Republican party.  At first mention of any plan that takes away from Big Business in order to give to the people, the battle lines are drawn and the forces against it rise like the Mongols under Genghis Khan. 

Their strategy is to overwhelm us when we're looking the other way.   They scatter divisive issues among us, like religion and communism and abortion and taxes and elusive presidential birth certificates and death sentences for our grandmothers, and while we're preoccupied with the stuff that makes us really, really mad, they rob us blind and revel in the spoils.

It's been a long time since Genghis and the mongols roamed the earth burning and pillaging.  Most of us here in the United States no longer live in isolated villages far from the protections of civilization.  We are savvy now.  We can read and write and use Google.  By rights, we should be long past being duped, but even as I write this the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) is in the midst of their annual convention.  Glenn Beck is scheduled to be their keynote speaker, and it promises to be a fine day for Tea Parties.  According to Gail Collins in her aptly titled (and pretty funny) column, "Time to Party like it's 1854", one of the panel discussions is called, “When All Else Fails: Nullification and State Resistance to Federal Tyranny.”  (Go here and click on 2010 agenda.As a group, they don't like Americans much.

Mitt Romney spoke at the convention:  "[Obama] has prolonged the recession, expanded the pain of unemployment and added to the debt of future generations. The Obama, Pelosi, Reid team has failed the American people. . .Truth trumps hope.  The truth is that government is not the solution to all of our problems."

Right.  Can't wait for the second installment.  The one where they tell us what's going to happen once they get the government out of the picture.

Sure Road to Success - Stick It to Labor

I can say this because I'm a liberal and a Michigander: My heart breaks for the laboring class in this country. I feel sorrow even for the workers who can't see that the unions are their only lifeline and inexplicably fight against them with a passion reserved only for one's worst enemies.

The working class, the significant majority in numbers, has somehow, ever since Ronald Reagan declared war on them, become the least of us--the minority. Privatization and outsourcing have rendered them nothing more than powerless drudges.

The working class is the laughingstock, the disposable, the darling of the politicians when they need their votes, and the most wretched of pariahs when the monied class sees their mountain top begin to erode.

The children of the working class hold no status and deserve no consideration. There are millions of people who would rather spend their money fighting against abortion laws than feed and care for poor children.

• More than 9 million children are estimated to be served by Feeding America, over 2 million of which are ages 5 and under, representing nearly 13 percent of all children under age 18 in the United States and over 72 percent of all children in poverty.
• According to the USDA, an estimated 12.4 million children lived in food insecure (low food security and very low food security) households in 2007.
• 8 states plus DC have more than 20 percent of children living in food insecure households, the states of Texas (23.58%) and Mississippi (22.84%) have the highest rates of children in households without consistent access to food.
• The top four states with the highest rate of food insecure children are Texas, Mississippi, Arizona, and New Mexico.

There is a concerted effort in this country to abolish public education, which means that the working majority would receive little or no schooling. Instead of working to fix the massive education problems that face us, there is a faction (which includes sitting politicians) that would, instead, like to see all education privatized and turned into a money-maker.

The working class is subject to scams that in any other culture would be considered criminal. PayDay loans and cash advance loans are legal in all but a few states. Credit card interest rates can run as high as 35% legally. Usury laws went by the wayside, along with even the most basic consumer protections. All that those concerned, including governmental agencies, can do now is put out bulletins warning against scammers.

The goal is the impoverishment of the working class, and I believe we're reaching that level faster than any Imperial Fat Cat could have imagined in his wildest wet dream.

What stuns me and keeps me awake at night is that there are millions of laborers here in America who see no disparity, no unfairness, no real need to change the status quo. Wages and protections go down at a dizzying pace while costs to live rise by the minute.

Robert Reich wrote in his blog today that manufacturing jobs are gone forever, so we might as well

. . .stop pining after the days when millions of Americans stood along assembly lines and continuously bolted, fit, soldered or clamped what went by. Those days are over. And stop blaming poor nations whose workers get very low wages. Of course their wages are low; these nations are poor. They can become more prosperous only by exporting to rich nations. When America blocks their exports by erecting tariffs and subsidizing our domestic industries, we prevent them from doing better. Helping poorer nations become more prosperous is not only in the interest of humanity but also wise because it lessens global instability.

Want to blame something? Blame new knowledge. Knowledge created the electronic gadgets and software that can now do almost any routine task. This goes well beyond the factory floor. America also used to have lots of elevator operators, telephone operators, bank tellers and service-station attendants. Remember? Most have been replaced by technology. Supermarket check-out clerks are being replaced by automatic scanners. The Internet has taken over the routine tasks of travel agents, real estate brokers, stock brokers and even accountants. With digitization and high-speed data networks a lot of back office work can now be done more cheaply abroad.

I don't know. Maybe that's what so depressing--that notion from even the most learned, the most logical, that we might as well just give up. Privatizing and outsourcing works. Our days of actually producing goods are over. Where it used to be patriotic to produce goods, we now find that the best way to keep our country strong is to send the workers packing.

So now what do we do? Here's Reich again:

The biggest challenge we face over the long term -- beyond the current depression -- isn't how to bring manufacturing back. It's how to improve the earnings of America's expanding army of low-wage workers who are doing personal service jobs in hotels, hospitals, big-box retail stores, restaurant chains, and all the other businesses that need bodies but not high skills.

Unbelievable. Even Reich. They got to Reich. Who's next? God??

Ramona

(Cross-posted at Talking Points Memo here.)

Our Money? Since when?

Does anybody believe that the money we shell out in taxes is anything other than an absolute giveaway? Do I have control over it once it leaves my hands? No, I don't. Do you? The truth is, as much as we want to feel good when The Powers say, "This is your money. . ." or "We owe it to the taxpayers. . . ", it's nothing more than a soothing murmur, a perfunctory pat on the head, as they pocket it all and head for their far-off moated castles.

Make no mistake. We are not "partners" in this great country of ours. We're the serfs, the peasants, the "folk", and our sole function is to fill the coffers, to provide services and succor to the gentry--and to do it with no questions asked and great gushes of gratitude.

In the mid- to-latter part of the last century we, the people, had it pretty good. We made things--remember? A good portion of the working class brought home paychecks large enough to actually buy things without mortgaging their entire lives. Mothers could even be home with their children.

But then a plague called "Reaganomics" descended upon the land, and over the years the Robber Barons were given the gift that keeps on giving: Deregulation. Talk about glee! The Free markets shall reign! Long live the Free Marketeers!

But peasants, never fear--Reaganomics will be good for us. They've come up with something called "trickle down". Yes, the rich will get richer. Of course! But they're going to share. No really--they're Americans. They wouldn't sell us down the river. Or across the sea.

Remember that? Has the trickle gotten to you yet? Nope, me neither. I see gushers of gold going to the already monied, but nary a drop coming this way. Not even a shiny damp spot. None to be seen.

I'm going to skip over the dreaded Bush Years here. You already know what happened. Talk about your horrible nightmares come true. Longest eight years of my life. But we're on the other side now, and while I doubt we'll ever look back on any of it and laugh, even after all we've been through we were still able to muster enough energy to boot the thugs out and bring in a shiny-armored knight. That was good.

But the trouble with knights? When they remove all that glitter, underneath they're just--you or me. All the power, apparently, is in the heavy metal.

So today, when we peasants were hearing about $165,000,000 worth of bonuses paid or promised to executives who dragged their company, AIG, to the edge of the cliff, where we peasants, AKA taxpayers, threw out a safety net and rescued just this bunch alone to the tune of 170 billion dollars (We must have done it in our sleep because when we finally woke up whole storehouses full of money had disappeared), a cry went over the land that the shiny-armored knight is beginning to tarnish.

The re-birth of this nation is still in its infancy. The knights are just leaving the Round Table, getting ready to do battle. There are marauders all along the way, and let's face it--they're good at doing dastardly. They've had a lot of practice.

So get out the damned Tarn-X or whatever it takes. Shine up that suit. Wipe the mist from the man's eyes so he can see more clearly now. He's got promises to keep and daunting tasks ahead. And the peasants, in case you haven't noticed, are on the move.

(Any pigs at the trough? Your days are numbered. We mean it this time, so enjoy it while you can.)


Ramona

A Long, Long Season of Shame

I used to love to watch John Leonard review movies on CBS's "Sunday Morning". I never knew what he was talking about but I sure loved the sound of his words. Every week, after he finished his review, my husband and I would turn to each other and say, in almost perfect unison, "So? Did he like it or not?" (John Leonard died last November 8, four days after the presidential election. He was only 69. Way too young to die for anybody, but especially young for a wise old owl like Leonard. He was gravely ill but he mustered up nearly the last of his energy in order to vote for Barack Obama. I rarely understood the man but I wasn't the least bit surprised. I knew he would never have voted for McCain/Palin.)

One Sunday he was talking about a plague of spectacularly vile horror movies that had descended upon us that year. At the very end, he heaved that long, sad sigh heard so often during the Bush years and said, loud and clear, "I'm old enough to remember when America still felt shame."

I thought about John Leonard and that remark last week when I was in a Books-a-Million and I wandered over to their Joe Muggs coffee shop. Every table had a tri-folded advertising stand-up and they were all exactly the same. One side focused on BAM's membership advantages, one side told about Joe Muggs's latest Cappuccino flavor, and the third advertised Ann Coulter's newest paean to hate, "GUILTY: Liberal Victims and their Assault on America".

I guessed that Coulter's publisher, Random House (Bennett Cerf must be spinning down there), paid a pretty penny for their third of the stand-ups--an offer BAM maybe couldn't refuse--but couldn't BAM at least have tried to find another publisher--one who recognizes, celebrates and rewards good literature--willing to pay the same? For every Coulter fan turned on by the image of their favorite dominatrix taking a military stance, glaring out at us from above the word "Guilty". . .(Oh, I see now. A bit of sabotage by the cover designer? From a distance it looks like Ann's the criminal. I LIKE it!) . . .they're going to find people like me who just don't get the appeal of hatemongers.

The hateful have always been among us, but never so forcefully or in such great numbers. When I hear that millions of people are buying Coulter's ugly, inaccurate books or gushing over the nonsensical rantings of Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Hannity, Malkin, and a host of other snarling snipes, I have to wonder who these supposedly sentient inhabitants of the 21st Century, these self-anointed cultural caretakers, these self-appointed arbiters of our United States, these (Must I say it?) Voters really are.
(Stop me! I'm lapsing into a really bad imitation of Leonard-speak!)

Anyway. . .I want to shout to them (because I don't want to get too near): What are you people doing? You glorified and deified Ronald Reagan, a "leader" who almost singlehandedly killed the unions and who gave the destruction of the lower and middle classes such a boost we may never recover from it. He filled his cabinet with anti-government goons who reveled in showing their muscle, depriving poor kids of healthy school lunches by seizing on ketchup as a good enough vegetable, by turning our public lands over to as much private enterprise as their eight year reign would allow, and by introducing "deregulation" into our every day lexicon.

You so longed for the total destruction of Bill Clinton, a popular president not of your choosing or your party, that you readily bought into-- and passed along with a giddy vengeance--the notion that a really sleazy sex life was immediate grounds for something as serious and as rare as impeachment.

On the other hand, you turned your heads and closed your minds to any real evidence that, after Clinton (the really popular president) completed his eight years more or less honorably (no thanks to you), the woefully inadequate one you then so carelessly chose and so happily ensconced was everything you hoped he wouldn't be.

But even after the Bush Administration took the astonishingly shortsighted and murderous detour to Iraq, presided over the sickening mishandling of Katrina, initiated programs that severely undermined the lives of all but the super rich--showing their true colors at every turn--you still came out in huge numbers to put them back into office for four more years!

And even after he proved you wrong so many times, and even after you and your fathers and your mothers and your sisters and your brothers and everyone else you ever came into contact in your entire life got the shaft from George W. Bush and the Republicans, did you finally come to recognize the error of your ways? Did you promise to donate every penny you ever make as long as you live to help take care of those millions of victims who were doing, if not splendidly, at least pretty much okay until your guys came along? Did you press for jail sentences for your former buddies? Something--anything--to wipe those stupid grins off of Bush/Cheney's evil mugs? Did you at least give up Chocolate on Thursdays??

No. You didn't. Instead, you bought Ann Coulter's books and went on listening to Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Hannity, Malkin and that host of--others. You're over on Newsmax right now yucking it up over Obama's middle name and passing it on that Michelle is a Mother.

I see I'm not getting through to you. . .but I know someone who recognizes shame when he sees it. Watch and learn:



Ramona