Barack Obama and the Chamber of Mostly Shallows

Now, on some issues, like the Recovery Act, we've found common cause. On other issues, we've had some pretty strong disagreements. But I'm here today because I'm convinced we can and must work together. Whatever differences we may have, I know that all of us share a deep belief in this country, our people, and the principles that have made America's economy the envy of the world.
President Barack Obama speaking to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 2/7/11

 "I just dropped my butter knife.  Can I borrow yours?"

America's success didn't happen by accident. It happened because of the freedom that has allowed good ideas to flourish, and capitalism to thrive. It happened because of the conviction that in this country, hard work should be rewarded; that opportunity should be there for anyone willing to reach for it. And it happened because at every juncture in history, we came together as one nation and did what was necessary to win the future.  POTUS, again.

Loud cheers.  "He said 'Capitalism', right?"

We still have, by far, the world's largest and most vibrant economy. We have the most productive workers, the finest universities and the freest markets. The men and women in this room are living testimony that American industry is still the source of the most dynamic companies, and the most ingenious entrepreneurs.  POTUS, same speech

"Free markets, YAY!"
 "Shut up, idiot, he's talking about American industry."

But we also know that with the march of technology over the last few decades, the competition for jobs and businesses has grown fierce. The globalization of our economy means that businesses can now open up shop, employ workers and produce their goods wherever there is internet connection. Tasks that were once done by 1,000 workers can now be done by 100, or even 10. And the truth is, as countries like China and India grow and develop larger middle classes, it's profitable for global companies to aggressively pursue these markets and, at times, to set up facilities in these countries.  POTUS

 "All right!  That's what I'M talkin' about!"

These forces are as unstoppable as they are powerful. But combined with a brutal and devastating recession, they have also shaken the faith of the American people - in the institutions of business and government. They see a widening chasm of wealth and opportunity in this country, and they wonder if the American Dream is slipping away. President Obama

"So. . .Steelers or Packers?  You a bettin' man?"

We cannot ignore these concerns. We have to renew people's faith in the promise of this country - that this is a place where you can make it if you try. And we have to do this together: business and government; workers and CEOs; Democrats and Republicans. Obama

"Jesus, somebody spilled sauce on my tie."

We know what it will take for America to win the future. We need to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build our competitors. We need an economy that's based not on what we consume and borrow from other nations, but what we make and sell around the world. We need to make America the best place on earth to do business. O

"See that guy behind me?  Don't look!  I met him at a party last year.  He could buy and sell both of us.  Wanna say hello but I can't remember his name. Shit! Know him?  Don't look!"

And this is a job for all of us. As a government, we will help lay the foundation for you to grow and innovate. We will upgrade our transportation and communications networks so you can move goods and information more quickly and cheaply. We will invest in education so that you can hire the most skilled, talented workers in the world. And we'll knock down barriers that make it harder for you to compete, from the tax code to the regulatory system.

"Yeah, I've heard that song and dance before.  Show me the money, buddy.  Show me the money."

But I want to be clear: even as we make America the best place on earth to do business, businesses also have a responsibility to America.
Now, I understand the challenges you face. I understand that you're under incredible pressure to cut costs and keep your margins up. I understand the significance of your obligations to your shareholders. I get it. But as we work with you to make America a better place to do business, ask yourselves what you can do for America. Ask yourselves what you can do to hire American workers, to support the American economy, and to invest in this nation. That's what I want to talk about today - the responsibilities we all have to secure the future we all share.  Barack Hussein Obama

"Picked up another place on Hilton Head.  Love those short sales!"

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.  BHO

"Where's that waitress with the coffee?  Is it hot in here?  What time is it?"

We have faced hard times before. We have faced moments of tumult and change before. We know what to do. We know how to succeed. We are Americans. And as we have throughout our history, I have every confidence that will rise to this occasion; that we can come together, that we can adapt and thrive in a changing economy. And we need look no further than the innovative companies in this room. If we can harness your potential and the potential of the people all across our country, there will be no stopping us.
Thank you. God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America.  That guy still talking

 "Okay, so. . .I'm ready for a drink.  How about you?"
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The GOP's big plan: Yell "taxes" in a Crowded Theater, Send in the Clowns, Boffo Box Office*

I woke up this morning with a mad, radical thought in my head: What if I'm wrong and those damned Republicans really are right?  What if, after all their clowning around, it turns out they actually have what it takes to allow us to pack up our troubles in our old kit bag and smile, smile, smile?

It sat me right up, this thought that I've been fighting against that bunch for so long I've completely lost sight of what they might actually stand for.  Ye gads, what if Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin are just the kind of visionaries it takes to shock us into lasting prosperity?

I can't say my eureka moment energized me enough to cause me to leap out of bed, but around my third cup of coffee it came to me that in order to understand my potential new pals I must go to the source and see what they have in mind for us once they've regained control of congress and have set to work fixing all of the things they so successfully screwed up in the first place.

I went to GOP.com, the one-stop-shopping place for all things Republican, and wasn't a bit surprised to see Sarah Palin waiting for me at the door.  I got past  her, side-stepping the booth where they're lining up to get on the Get Pelosi Fired bus, then found myself in some pretty nasty alleys and a few dead ends, but I forged on, looking for the magic portal marked "Solutions", the entrance into proof-positive that the Republicans have only our best interests at heart and are working feverishly toward making America the Land of Plenty for more than just the ultra- über- super-rich.

So. You're pretty sure I found it, right?  You can't wait to read concrete evidence that the Republicans have actually come up with better recovery plans than anyone could even have imagined--that a miraculous fix is in the works, ready to be implemented as soon as they're in power again.

I'll bet you're thinking I'm going to have to eat a whole field full of crow after all the naughty words I've used against them.

Not so fast, mateys.  This is all I found:  A six-part section called "Issues".

The first, National Defense, is the longest, at 177 words, and starts out, "President Ronald Reagan's approach to America's national defense, which successfully confronted the Soviet Union and ended the Cold War, is as essential today as it was then."
Okay. Nothing new there.

Issue number 2 is Health Care:  "We support common-sense health care reforms that would lower costs, preserve quality, end lawsuit abuse, and maintain the health care that Americans deserve.  We oppose government-run health care, which won't preserve the physician-patient relationship, won't promote competition, and won't promote health care quality and choice."
Americans deserve this kind of health care?  And this wins you brownie points?

Third issue, Energy:  "We believe in energy independence.  We support an 'all of the above' approach that encourages the production of nuclear power, clean coal, natural gas, solar, wind, geothermal, hydropower, as well as off-shore drilling in an environmentally responsible way. We oppose so-called cap and trade legislation that would impose a national energy tax on families and small businesses that would kill jobs and raise utility prices."
Just kidding about that Green energy stuff.  We're not really going to push that.

Education is number 4:  "We believe that maintaining a world-class system of primary and secondary education, with high standards, in which all students can reach their potential, is critically important to American's future. We believe in the power of school choice, that giving parents the ability to send their children to better schools--not keeping them trapped in failing schools--is an important way to enable children to get the quality education they deserve."
Okay, public ed, the jig's up. You're outta here.

Issue number 5 is Economy:  "We believe in the power and opportunity of America's free market economy.  We believe in the importance of sensible business regulations that promote confidence in our economy among consumers, entrepreneurs and businesses alike.  We oppose interventionist policies that put the federal government in control of industry and allow it to pick winners and losers in the marketplace."
In other words, carry on, O Leaders of the Pack.  Your money is safe with you.

Number 6, the final issue, is the Courts:  "Republicans believe a judge's role is to interpret law, not make law from the bench. Judges in our court system, from district courts to the Supreme Court, should demonstrate fidelity to the U.S. Constitution.  We trust the judicial system to make rulings on the law and nothing else."
Phew, glad this one was last.  Sure stinks up the place, doesn't it?


So that's it.  There's nothing else.  Notice what's missing?  There's not a single solitary mention of the need to protect American workers or the need to create American jobs. Not a thing about the poor and middle classes, who are suffering the most in this depression masquerading as a recession.  Nothing about bankruptcies or foreclosures or people lining up at job sites, at food banks, at homeless shelters. Nothing about vets living on the streets. Nada bout kids having their health insurance canceled out of spite.  Nothing in there to sully their devotion to the Fat Cat sponsors who count on them to keep the "You line our pockets and we'll line yours" roundelay going.

Okay, they're as bad as I thought they were only just yesterday.  But I should sleep well tonight, ready for battle again tomorrow, because I've seen the nightmare and it is them.

But in case you're still leaning toward voting the bums back in because the Democrats just aren't doing it for you, you might want to read "The 'Teach-the-Dems-a-Lesson' myth" by Robert Parry.  It's an eye-opener.

(*Boffo box office:  Old Variety headline meaning a film, play or performance has raked in the big bucks.)
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Peace in Our Time Here on Our Shores

[A] just peace includes not only civil and political rights — it must encompass economic security and opportunity. For true peace is not just freedom from fear, but freedom from want.
It is undoubtedly true that development rarely takes root without security; it is also true that security does not exist where human beings do not have access to enough food, or clean water, or the medicine they need to survive. It does not exist where children cannot aspire to a decent education or a job that supports a family. The absence of hope can rot a society from within.

President Barack Obama, Nobel Peace Prize speech, Oslo, Norway, 12/10/09

As I listened to Barack Obama speak those words midway through his speech in Oslo this morning, they hit me like a ton of bricks.  I don't know if he planned it, or even realized it, but he was talking as much about the plight of Americans as he was of any other citizens of the world.

We are at war here, and we're losing the battle to save ourselves.  The Barbarians are living among us (though not beside us, since their communities are gated fortresses), using  innocuous, often American-sounding names in order to hide the fact that they are busily working from within to destroy the very fabric of our lives.

They go by many monikers -- plutocrats, Fat Cats, moguls, tycoons, Big Cheeses,  Moneybags, Wheeler-dealers, Head Honchos. . .and those are just the nice terms.  (Some of them used to be called "Captains of Industry" but since that ship has sailed, they don't answer to that anymore.)

They do their work right out in the open--no fear--because there are enough  partners-in-crime among the high mucky-mucks in our nation's government to keep them safe and happy.  The enemies of the people don't have to resort to bearing arms or setting up artillery.  No strafing from the air, no carpet-bombing, no picking us off from the roof-tops.  After years of pretending that all of their seemingly destructive actions are for our own good, they've got us right where they want us.

You really have to hand it to them--they vanquished us with nothing more than obfuscation and clever lies--that and vaults overflowing with ill-gotten gains.

They used the tactics of every enemy worth its stripe--first  the stroking ("Let us make as much as we can and we'll make sure it trickles down to you."), then the cajoling ("We're a capitalistic country. You understand about free markets, don't you?"), then the intimidating ("The government will turn us all into Socialists.  Communism won't be far behind."), and finally the outright war ("If you don't let us have our way, we will destroy you--we have the Chamber of Commerce and the entire Republican Party on our side.  You have only what we've allowed you to have.  Chew on that for a while.")

So consequently we have the sort of country that Obama decried in his Oslo speech:  Citizens without access to enough food or medicine, reports of dirty water, an educational system ranking lower than some third world countries, capable men and women rooting around for jobs that will keep their families intact.

We are those people.  The people that other, richer countries are either pitying or trying to ignore.  The people who had it all and gave it away.  The people who can't muster up the will to fight the enemy within our own borders.  The people who may ultimately lose it all.

As Obama said this morning, "An absence of hope can rot a society from within". He was the champion of hope and we bought it to such a delirious degree, we lifted him into the White House and took to the streets wildly cheering our good fortune. 

Our hope, if not absent now, is at least preoccupied.  We need it back if we're ever going to take care of our own business again.  We need the man who accepted the Nobel Peace Prize today to come home and lead us out of this.  We'll fight as hard as we can, but we can't do it without a leader.  He is it, and it's time he took a good, long look at the one country whose problems he can actually do something about.

Ramona

(Cross-posted at Talking Points Memo here.)

Maher Socks it to the Profiteers - Why hasn't everyone else?

How about this for a New Rule: Not everything in America has to make a profit. It used to be that there were some services and institutions so vital to our nation that they were exempt from market pressures. Some things we just didn't do for money. The United States always defined capitalism, but it didn't used to define us. But now it's becoming all that we are. - Bill Maher, Huffington Post, July 23, 2009

In my last blog, about Walter Cronkite, Frank McCourt and Molly Ivins, three totally different communicators who made an impact on me and on my own writing (truth be told), I said, "A writer who can also speak off the cuff is rare. (Of course it helps if you're either Irish or Southern or Bill Maher.)"

I don't know why Maher came to mind when I wrote that sentence. There are plenty of writers who can talk in public. They used to call them "raconteurs", and they used to appear on Jack Paar's "Tonight Show" and on "The Dick Cavett Show". Now they appear on "Charlie Rose" but I can't stay up that late at night anymore to watch them.

But when I wrote the above, Bill Maher's was the only name that came to mind. It was as if I knew he was going to post this absolutely brilliant and incredibly important
New Rule on Huffington Post last night.

There are so many quotable quotes in that one piece that if I began posting my favorites I would be posting every single paragraph. So here are a few terrific truths, and then you can go on and read the rest for yourself:

"A company called the Corrections Corporation of America is on the New York Stock Exchange, which is convenient since that's where all the real crime is happening anyway. The CCA and similar corporations actually lobby Congress for stiffer sentencing laws so they can lock more people up and make more money. That's why America has the world's largest prison population ­-- because actually rehabilitating people would have a negative impact on the bottom line."

"In the U.S. today, three giant for-profit conglomerates own close to 600 hospitals and other health care facilities. They're not hospitals anymore; they're Jiffy Lubes with bedpans. America's largest hospital chain, HCA, was founded by the family of Bill Frist, who perfectly represents the Republican attitude toward health care: it's not a right, it's a racket."

"If conservatives get to call universal health care "socialized medicine," I get to call private health care "soulless vampires making money off human pain." The problem with President Obama's health care plan isn't socialism, it's capitalism.

So many of us have said for so long that this isn't the America we've known and loved. We've shouted until we're blue in the face that letting the obscenely rich get obscenely richer by sacrificing the entire middle class MAKES NO SENSE.

We've screamed at the top of our lungs that sending American businesses offshore to hire workers at slave class wages in order to reap huge profits is wholly un-American.

We've let the lies go on about health care, but the truth is people are sickening and dying because nobody cares enough.

We elected a president we thought would pull us out of this by smacking down the profiteers. On election day, November, 2008 we went mad with sheer joy when Barack Obama said the dark days were over and a new light would shine on truth, justice and the American Way.

As much as I want to go on cheer-leading for our new president, I still see us wallowing in quicksand. We can't wait forever. We've got to get out of this NOW.

Shut those Republicans UP. They're the reason we're in this mess.

Blue Dog Democrats--you sully the very party name.

Wall Street, K Street, C Street--put a cop on every corner. Arrest those bastards!

And keep the comedians commenting. Bill Maher and Jon Stewart--the voices of the people?? Okay, it's a start. Anyone else?

Ramona

(Cross-posted at Talking Points Memo here)