JAZZMAN CHRONICLES. DISSEMINATE FREELY.
THE MENDACITY OF REPUBLICAN POLITICS:
THE GOP STRATEGY FOR WINNING THE WHITE HOUSE
By Jack Random
“What's that smell in this room? Didn't you notice it, Brick? Didn't you notice a powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity in this room?”
Big Daddy, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
If it were possible to come to America without any knowledge of its politics or culture, like Alexis de Tocqueville in another age, and your first exposure was the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, you would have an impression that is as far from the truth as Anchorage is from Manhattan.
Among the milieu of misconceptions you would believe that the Republicans are the party of the working people, the party of Medicare and Social Security, the party that cares for the poor, the elderly and destitute, the party that protects the rights of women and immigrants, the party that welcomes all races and creeds with open arms, and the party that can be counted on to save the American auto industry.
You would think that our military has remained idle too long, that we are not a nation weighed down by the long war in Afghanistan, but a nation that should go to war in Syria, Somalia, Iran, Venezuela, Pakistan and anywhere in the world where governments do not bend to our will. You would think that we are still engaged in a cold war with China and Russia.
You would think the Republicans are the party that would stand up against job exportation, low wages and benefits, and unfair trade policies. You would think they stood firmly behind labor.
None of these assumptions would hold a kernel of truth. They are in fact close to the opposite of true but politics is politics.
Any honest Republican would tell you that theirs is the party of free enterprise, free trade, small government, low taxes, balanced budgets and individual liberty. Whether the party has lived up to its ideals is another matter (on deficits, small government and balanced budgets they decidedly have not); these are the ideals at the core of the party.
Any honest Republican would tell you that they are the party opposed to labor. They are the party of business and they side with corporate interests against working people on every issue from trade policy (shipping jobs to nations with the cheapest labor force) to the minimum wage. The Grand Old Party is the mortal enemy of organized labor, having waged open and aggressive war against unions and the right to organize in every field of private and public employment.
The Republican Party fundamentally does not believe in Medicare or Social Security or any other government program to feed the hungry or house the poor. They believe in starving the beast, which is their way of saying eviscerating the social safety net.
Any honest Republican would tell you that if you are interested in the rights of women, the rights of minorities or the rights of immigrants, they are not your party. To suggest that they are still the party of Lincoln is to ignore the history of the Civil Rights movement and the demise of the Dixie Democrats. The modern Republican Party is the party of the South.
These are the solemn truths of the GOP that went largely unspoken in Tampa, Florida. What then was this four-day festival of partisan glorification all about?
It is true that most if not all political parties and candidates will bend the truth and engage in subterfuge or deception if they believe it will work to their advantage. Dick Nixon won an election on a “secret plan” to end the Vietnam War and the last Republican president whose name was never uttered at his party’s national convention, promised to avoid nation-building and the kind of foreign entanglements that lead to it.
Now Mitt Romney wants to help the poor, the homeless and the oppressed.
The question arises: Do the Republicans actually believe they can piece together a majority of the electorate from the gullible and clueless or is there some other strategy at work here?
From my political perspective, the Republican electorate breaks down like this:
The Tea Party Republicans are entrenched and motivated by irrational fear and loathing of President Obama. They comprise about 25% of the electorate and they can safely be taken for granted. This convention was not for them.
Another 5-10% of the electorate is the wealthiest of Americans. They are Mitt Romney’s peers and they will vote for him because they believe (with ample cause) that it is in their personal interest (an assumption that breaks down if the economy crashes as it did under Bush). They need no assurances and this convention was not for them.
Another 5-10% of Americans will vote Republican out of habit. It is the party of their parents and grandparents, the party of John Wayne (read: Clint Eastwood) and Ronald Reagan whose portraits were once displayed alongside a blond, blue-eyed Jesus over the fireplace. This convention was not for them.
Add it all up and the Republican coalition is still insufficient to win the election. The decisive 5-10% of active voters must be peeled away from those who are clearly not represented by this Republican Party, including women, minorities and working people whose politics are not governed by wealth or religion.
These are the people who elect presidents. They are not entrenched. Most of them voted for Obama in the last presidential election and swung to the Republicans in the midterm. By and large, they are not pleased with what the Tea Party did with the power they gave them. They have no overriding interest in the social-religious agenda. They are not anti-labor. They are not anti-immigrant. They are certainly not against birth control. In 2010 they wanted a change in economic fortune and they did not receive it from the representatives, governors and legislators they elected.
This Republican National Convention was for them.
To persuade them to vote Republican again they need assurances that this is not the same party they elected in the midterms. They need reasons they can understand why they are a better option than Obama and the Democrats. They need to believe that placing the Republicans in the White House would not result in the same catastrophe that George W. Bush visited on the American people in two terms of office. They need to believe that this is not the same party that caused our economic breakdown.
With the exception of John McCain, who brought the Neocon nightmare back in stark and vivid detail, this convention was the soft side of Republican politics. That it was entirely fiction hardly matters. It is the best hope of a party with a poor track record and a candidate so bland and without conviction that virtually no one on either side of the political divide likes or believes him.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS, GLOBAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.
Thursday, September 06, 2012
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
THE CREEPING CYNICISM OF POLITICAL DISCOURSE: GUNS, TAXES & OTHER MATTERS
JAZZMAN CHRONICLES. DISSEMINATE FREELY.
By Jack Random
At an uncertain age and threshold of experience, something dark and cynical takes hold of the human psyche. Given any topic, event or policy, you realize that you have already engaged every argument from virtually every point of view.
Pity the poor soul who makes a living at political discourse. The quest for some fresh detail or novel nuance to keep the mind rolling must be tedious labor. Common sense abandoned, consistency discarded like obsolete technology, and passion tossed aside like yesterday’s waste, the march of punditry carries on in an endless procession to the same dull beat.
Consequent discourse is as moving as elevator jazz yet we move forward hoping somehow that it will make a difference, knowing within that it very likely will not.
I reached the threshold of cynicism after the latest lunatic with an arsenal of weapons tripped over the rainbow and splattered a crowded theater featuring comic book cinema with blood. You think it might be time to put a lock on the door to domestic weapons of mass destruction? The left says yea, the right says nay. We should arm everyone with deadly weapons so we can all shoot back in a dark theater. Should we outlaw automatic weapons? Not a chance. Bigger guns and better clips for all! It’s in the constitution. How about requiring an individual to provide a first name and middle initial before purchasing a Glock .357? Sure but only if he or she can use a pseudonym, something like The Joker. How about closing the Gun Show loophole that enables drug lords to enforce their will with mass murder below the border? Sorry, it’s the second amendment: Thou shalt protect drug lords and homicidal lunatics at all costs.
The truth beneath the veneer of second amendment fervor is that we must retain an armed populace to overthrow the government of a moderate dark skinned Democrat should he be elected to a second term. If you do not recognize the lunacy in this proposition then you are the problem.
In an interview that raised the concerns of the political left, candidate Barrack Obama expressed admiration for Ronald Reagan as a transformative president. There is in fact little in his record as president with which Reagan would disapprove. He has forwarded the Free Trade movement despite the awakening resistance of an electorate opposed to job exportation. Facing a financial crisis born of Wall Street malfeasance unrivaled in depth and breadth since the Great Depression, he has limited the backlash to the relatively tame Dodd-Frank reform. The restoration of Glass-Steagall has not even entered the debate. He renewed the Bush tax cuts in exchange for extended unemployment benefits. He has pressed forward in the war on terror, refused to repeal the draconian statutes of the Patriot Act, enacted drone warfare without congressional consent and prosecuted the war in Afghanistan beyond what reason and compassion would allow.
He has handed authority for the administration of welfare back to the states and strengthened private control of the healthcare system with the Affordable Care Act.
The truth is Bill Clinton did more to enact the Reagan vision of government than any other succeeding president and Obama has followed the Clinton tradition. The truth is the left has little or no representation in any of the three branches of government and yet a growing number of Americans are filling their basements and garages with weapons and ammunition in preparation for civil war.
It is the left that should be alarmed. It is the left that should be crying out for revolutionary change. Instead, we are reduced to political gadflies, defending the president’s infinite moderation and opposing a contender with no more backbone than a slug.
To say Mitt Romney is a man without conviction is like saying John Wayne Gacy was a murderer. He has elevated the art of duplicity and triangulation to a level that Machiavelli would envy. He is the kind of man only his inner circle of friends and family could like and even they might be lying. His ambition is so great it would make Caesar blush. He will say anything his advisors tell him will bring him closer to winning the peculiar chess game that is presidential electoral politics. If elected he will do what his advisors tell him to do. His foreign policy will be placed in the same neoconservative hands that delivered us into Iraq and muddled through the nightmare of Afghanistan. His corporate sponsors will control his economic policy and every initiative will be designed to maximize corporate profits at the expense of working folks.
The man who once proclaimed himself a moderate progressive now stands proudly at the helm of the primitive regressive party and smiles as they introduce compulsory pregnancy for rape and incest victims and a general ban on contraception. They want more babies but they don’t want to care for them. They favor steep cuts in all social programs to pay for tax cuts and increased military spending. Their idea of tax equity is that the rich pay less and the poor pay more.
What choice do we have but to oppose this man?
But opposing Mitt Romney is hardly the same as supporting President Obama. He took office to great fanfare, an historical precedent, and possibilities of greatness. His party controlled both houses of congress. As a Senator he knew the power of the filibuster and should have understood the willingness of Senate Republicans to use it. Either he did not or he accepted obstructionism as a part of the game. He did not press his former Democratic colleagues for rule changes (by a majority vote) that could have stymied obstructionism at the start. Consequently, he squandered much of his first term and produced a healthcare reform package so compromised few could defend it without deep reservations. He is essentially correct in describing his keystone legislative accomplishment as the Republican reform of another era.
President Obama has offered tokens to his political base on women’s rights (Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act), gay marriage (public support), immigration (an administrative reprieve to young immigrants to pursue higher education and employment), green energy (stimulus) and college students (financial aid reform).
He has failed to deliver anything of substance on trade policy and labor. While he can rightly claim credit for rescuing the American auto industry, he fell silent as the Republicans waged war against unions and collective bargaining in Wisconsin and elsewhere. As a candidate he promised to support and protect labor but he allowed the Employee Free Choice Act to die on the vine while he pursued his healthcare agenda.
He has failed to address environmental concerns of offshore, deep water drilling, chemical fracturing for natural gas and nuclear energy in the wake of Fukushima. Solar and wind are perpetually stalled, mass transit is on hold, and the road to expanded use of the world’s dirtiest sources of energy (tar sands and coal) is fully paved.
While military operations are substantially ended in Iraq, the president has failed to recognize reality in Afghanistan. Those of us who opposed both wars from inception should awaken every day to the nightmare of a thousand American soldiers and uncounted thousands of Afghans and Pakistanis killed on Obama’s watch.
Osama bin Laden is dead and Al Qaeda crippled as Obama has prosecuted the war on terror with the full force of our military and Special Forces but he has allowed the egregious and draconian measures of the Patriot Act to not only stand but also gain broader authority. Under his watch an American citizen can be shot down or indefinitely detained without due process of law.
This is the man the right wants us to fear as a secret socialist agent? The unspoken hope on the left is that he will emerge in the second term as what we used to call a Kennedy Democrat.
Forgive me for my cynicism but I have heard that theory before. The year was 1996 and Bill Clinton, who had reinvented himself and redefined his party as the conservative Democrats with a social conscience, was seeking reelection. We hope that his second term would be different and we were left waiting for four long years.
My last hope for the Clinton administration was that he would grand a presidential pardon to Lakota political prisoner Leonard Peltier (falsely convicted on trumped up charges of murdering two FBI agents). Peltier remains behind bars today while Mark Rich, a white-collar criminal and contributor to the Clinton campaign, received a full pardon.
Presidents do not change in the second term. Whatever policies and positions are set in the first term, they will be pursued in the second.
Whichever party takes control in the upcoming election, this nation will continue on its rightward path toward corporate rule. The only difference is the Republicans will accelerate the process.
In the wake of Citizens United (the Supreme Court ruling that allows unlimited corporate contributions to political campaigns), real change will not come until the system collapses under its own weight. Under the excesses of the Bush administration, we came perilously close to total economic collapse in 2008-2009. Following the same policies, making the same mistakes, we will inevitably arrive at that same crossroads in the near future.
While few would look forward to the pain and suffering that would follow an economic meltdown that is the only scenario that would have the potential to produce transformative change. Like the New Deal after the Great Depression, only a catastrophic crash could break the stranglehold the world’s mammoth corporations currently hold on our government.
Meantime, we will choose our candidates like horses at the Kentucky Derby and cheer them down the final stretch.
The rich will prosper, the poor will grow in numbers, and nobody wins in the end.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS, GLOBAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.
By Jack Random
At an uncertain age and threshold of experience, something dark and cynical takes hold of the human psyche. Given any topic, event or policy, you realize that you have already engaged every argument from virtually every point of view.
Pity the poor soul who makes a living at political discourse. The quest for some fresh detail or novel nuance to keep the mind rolling must be tedious labor. Common sense abandoned, consistency discarded like obsolete technology, and passion tossed aside like yesterday’s waste, the march of punditry carries on in an endless procession to the same dull beat.
Consequent discourse is as moving as elevator jazz yet we move forward hoping somehow that it will make a difference, knowing within that it very likely will not.
I reached the threshold of cynicism after the latest lunatic with an arsenal of weapons tripped over the rainbow and splattered a crowded theater featuring comic book cinema with blood. You think it might be time to put a lock on the door to domestic weapons of mass destruction? The left says yea, the right says nay. We should arm everyone with deadly weapons so we can all shoot back in a dark theater. Should we outlaw automatic weapons? Not a chance. Bigger guns and better clips for all! It’s in the constitution. How about requiring an individual to provide a first name and middle initial before purchasing a Glock .357? Sure but only if he or she can use a pseudonym, something like The Joker. How about closing the Gun Show loophole that enables drug lords to enforce their will with mass murder below the border? Sorry, it’s the second amendment: Thou shalt protect drug lords and homicidal lunatics at all costs.
The truth beneath the veneer of second amendment fervor is that we must retain an armed populace to overthrow the government of a moderate dark skinned Democrat should he be elected to a second term. If you do not recognize the lunacy in this proposition then you are the problem.
In an interview that raised the concerns of the political left, candidate Barrack Obama expressed admiration for Ronald Reagan as a transformative president. There is in fact little in his record as president with which Reagan would disapprove. He has forwarded the Free Trade movement despite the awakening resistance of an electorate opposed to job exportation. Facing a financial crisis born of Wall Street malfeasance unrivaled in depth and breadth since the Great Depression, he has limited the backlash to the relatively tame Dodd-Frank reform. The restoration of Glass-Steagall has not even entered the debate. He renewed the Bush tax cuts in exchange for extended unemployment benefits. He has pressed forward in the war on terror, refused to repeal the draconian statutes of the Patriot Act, enacted drone warfare without congressional consent and prosecuted the war in Afghanistan beyond what reason and compassion would allow.
He has handed authority for the administration of welfare back to the states and strengthened private control of the healthcare system with the Affordable Care Act.
The truth is Bill Clinton did more to enact the Reagan vision of government than any other succeeding president and Obama has followed the Clinton tradition. The truth is the left has little or no representation in any of the three branches of government and yet a growing number of Americans are filling their basements and garages with weapons and ammunition in preparation for civil war.
It is the left that should be alarmed. It is the left that should be crying out for revolutionary change. Instead, we are reduced to political gadflies, defending the president’s infinite moderation and opposing a contender with no more backbone than a slug.
To say Mitt Romney is a man without conviction is like saying John Wayne Gacy was a murderer. He has elevated the art of duplicity and triangulation to a level that Machiavelli would envy. He is the kind of man only his inner circle of friends and family could like and even they might be lying. His ambition is so great it would make Caesar blush. He will say anything his advisors tell him will bring him closer to winning the peculiar chess game that is presidential electoral politics. If elected he will do what his advisors tell him to do. His foreign policy will be placed in the same neoconservative hands that delivered us into Iraq and muddled through the nightmare of Afghanistan. His corporate sponsors will control his economic policy and every initiative will be designed to maximize corporate profits at the expense of working folks.
The man who once proclaimed himself a moderate progressive now stands proudly at the helm of the primitive regressive party and smiles as they introduce compulsory pregnancy for rape and incest victims and a general ban on contraception. They want more babies but they don’t want to care for them. They favor steep cuts in all social programs to pay for tax cuts and increased military spending. Their idea of tax equity is that the rich pay less and the poor pay more.
What choice do we have but to oppose this man?
But opposing Mitt Romney is hardly the same as supporting President Obama. He took office to great fanfare, an historical precedent, and possibilities of greatness. His party controlled both houses of congress. As a Senator he knew the power of the filibuster and should have understood the willingness of Senate Republicans to use it. Either he did not or he accepted obstructionism as a part of the game. He did not press his former Democratic colleagues for rule changes (by a majority vote) that could have stymied obstructionism at the start. Consequently, he squandered much of his first term and produced a healthcare reform package so compromised few could defend it without deep reservations. He is essentially correct in describing his keystone legislative accomplishment as the Republican reform of another era.
President Obama has offered tokens to his political base on women’s rights (Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act), gay marriage (public support), immigration (an administrative reprieve to young immigrants to pursue higher education and employment), green energy (stimulus) and college students (financial aid reform).
He has failed to deliver anything of substance on trade policy and labor. While he can rightly claim credit for rescuing the American auto industry, he fell silent as the Republicans waged war against unions and collective bargaining in Wisconsin and elsewhere. As a candidate he promised to support and protect labor but he allowed the Employee Free Choice Act to die on the vine while he pursued his healthcare agenda.
He has failed to address environmental concerns of offshore, deep water drilling, chemical fracturing for natural gas and nuclear energy in the wake of Fukushima. Solar and wind are perpetually stalled, mass transit is on hold, and the road to expanded use of the world’s dirtiest sources of energy (tar sands and coal) is fully paved.
While military operations are substantially ended in Iraq, the president has failed to recognize reality in Afghanistan. Those of us who opposed both wars from inception should awaken every day to the nightmare of a thousand American soldiers and uncounted thousands of Afghans and Pakistanis killed on Obama’s watch.
Osama bin Laden is dead and Al Qaeda crippled as Obama has prosecuted the war on terror with the full force of our military and Special Forces but he has allowed the egregious and draconian measures of the Patriot Act to not only stand but also gain broader authority. Under his watch an American citizen can be shot down or indefinitely detained without due process of law.
This is the man the right wants us to fear as a secret socialist agent? The unspoken hope on the left is that he will emerge in the second term as what we used to call a Kennedy Democrat.
Forgive me for my cynicism but I have heard that theory before. The year was 1996 and Bill Clinton, who had reinvented himself and redefined his party as the conservative Democrats with a social conscience, was seeking reelection. We hope that his second term would be different and we were left waiting for four long years.
My last hope for the Clinton administration was that he would grand a presidential pardon to Lakota political prisoner Leonard Peltier (falsely convicted on trumped up charges of murdering two FBI agents). Peltier remains behind bars today while Mark Rich, a white-collar criminal and contributor to the Clinton campaign, received a full pardon.
Presidents do not change in the second term. Whatever policies and positions are set in the first term, they will be pursued in the second.
Whichever party takes control in the upcoming election, this nation will continue on its rightward path toward corporate rule. The only difference is the Republicans will accelerate the process.
In the wake of Citizens United (the Supreme Court ruling that allows unlimited corporate contributions to political campaigns), real change will not come until the system collapses under its own weight. Under the excesses of the Bush administration, we came perilously close to total economic collapse in 2008-2009. Following the same policies, making the same mistakes, we will inevitably arrive at that same crossroads in the near future.
While few would look forward to the pain and suffering that would follow an economic meltdown that is the only scenario that would have the potential to produce transformative change. Like the New Deal after the Great Depression, only a catastrophic crash could break the stranglehold the world’s mammoth corporations currently hold on our government.
Meantime, we will choose our candidates like horses at the Kentucky Derby and cheer them down the final stretch.
The rich will prosper, the poor will grow in numbers, and nobody wins in the end.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS, GLOBAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.
Friday, July 27, 2012
CARRY ON: THE EXAMPLE OF ALEXANDER COCKBURN
By Jack Random
I didn’t know Alexander Cockburn. When I read his columns I found much to agree with and some significant points of contention but I always found integrity. I admired his irreverence, his fierce independence and his unwavering respect for documented facts.
Alexander Cockburn served no party, no corporate or political entity and owed no allegiance to ideological doctrine. He suffered neither fools nor folly no matter where they originated on the political spectrum. If you took him on, you had better be prepared to defend your position. If he took you on, you had better hunker down and brace for the storm.
For those who are not aware, Alexander Cockburn (pronounced Koh-burn) was the longest running columnist at The Nation (Beat the Devil) and co-editor with Jeffrey St. Clair of CounterPunch. On July 20 (coincidentally my birthday) he died of cancer and the world of political discourse suffered the loss of one of its most poignant voices.
I didn’t know Alexander Cockburn but I believe I owe him a personal debt of gratitude as a writer. In the years leading up to 2000 I was writing fiction, including a contemporary political novel that told the story of an independent organization challenging the dominance of the two-party system. Imbedded in that work was a series of commentaries that I published under the title The Jazzman Chronicles: Volume I.
Then came the stolen election of 2000, the September 11 terrorist attack, the Patriot Act and the relentless march to war in Afghanistan and Iraq. These events rendered my novel impotent if not irrelevant but they aroused my political passion. I published a second volume of the Jazzman Chronicles (The War Chronicles) but discovered that publishing was far too time consuming and financially untenable. As a writer, I wanted to devote my limited time and energy to writing. So I searched for an outlet on the worldwide web.
In those days of mass protest, the largest social uprising since the days of Vietnam, I found a forum for my brand of rabblerousing first at CounterPunch and later at Dissident Voice and Pacific Free Press. Over the years I’ve published hundreds of articles on various sites but in my heart I will always be a CounterPuncher.
There came a time when CounterPunch stopped posting the Chronicles and I stopped submitting. Then, a year or so past, I emailed Mr. Cockburn to ask why. Had I made mistakes? (Of course I had.) Had I been sloppy? (At times.) Had I offended the sensibilities of CounterPunch? (I didn’t know but there are occasions when the left can be as intolerant as the right.)
Looking back today, I suspect I knew the answer. Despite my own unwavering independence, confronted with war and threats of war, I have a tendency to become pragmatic during presidential elections. In 2004 and again in 2008 I advocated the lesser of evils on the grounds that even the slender difference between lesser and greater evil could translate to tens of thousands of lives if not more. I am not proud of that advocacy but I stand by it. In my view, George W. Bush was one of the worst and most destructive presidents in history and Senator John McCain was and is one of the last persons on earth to be trusted in possession of the nuclear trigger.
It enrages me that our system offers these kinds of choices: the corporate party that is openly eager for war and the corporate party that at least seems more restrained. The truth is: War is good business for incumbent presidents but that’s another matter.
I never received a response to my query but some time after the Chronicles began appearing on CounterPunch again. Who knows what if anything transpired behind the scenes? I certainly didn’t know that Mr. Cockburn was fighting for his life. Had I known, I would not have inquired. But I believe that either he or someone at his desk empathized with my cause and sanctioned the return of my voice at CounterPunch.
Mr. Cockburn was attacked for his dissenting views on many occasions and often became the target of liberal spokespersons and Democratic advocates. He never bent to pressure and he never backed down from a fight.
Alexander Cockburn was fiercely independent. He did not compromise and never wavered. He was a writer among writers and he wrote to the very end. In short, he was what I aspire to be and I thank him for the inspiration.
My working title for this piece was: RIP Alexander Cockburn. But then I realized that Mr. Cockburn would probably not be content with either rest or peace in an afterlife should there be one. I suspect he would be happier sitting in a tavern or café engaged in passionate discourse on the affairs of the day.
Here’s hoping he’s tipping one to Howard Zinn at this very moment. Carry on, Mr. Cockburn. Carry on.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS, GLOBAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.
I didn’t know Alexander Cockburn. When I read his columns I found much to agree with and some significant points of contention but I always found integrity. I admired his irreverence, his fierce independence and his unwavering respect for documented facts.
Alexander Cockburn served no party, no corporate or political entity and owed no allegiance to ideological doctrine. He suffered neither fools nor folly no matter where they originated on the political spectrum. If you took him on, you had better be prepared to defend your position. If he took you on, you had better hunker down and brace for the storm.
For those who are not aware, Alexander Cockburn (pronounced Koh-burn) was the longest running columnist at The Nation (Beat the Devil) and co-editor with Jeffrey St. Clair of CounterPunch. On July 20 (coincidentally my birthday) he died of cancer and the world of political discourse suffered the loss of one of its most poignant voices.
I didn’t know Alexander Cockburn but I believe I owe him a personal debt of gratitude as a writer. In the years leading up to 2000 I was writing fiction, including a contemporary political novel that told the story of an independent organization challenging the dominance of the two-party system. Imbedded in that work was a series of commentaries that I published under the title The Jazzman Chronicles: Volume I.
Then came the stolen election of 2000, the September 11 terrorist attack, the Patriot Act and the relentless march to war in Afghanistan and Iraq. These events rendered my novel impotent if not irrelevant but they aroused my political passion. I published a second volume of the Jazzman Chronicles (The War Chronicles) but discovered that publishing was far too time consuming and financially untenable. As a writer, I wanted to devote my limited time and energy to writing. So I searched for an outlet on the worldwide web.
In those days of mass protest, the largest social uprising since the days of Vietnam, I found a forum for my brand of rabblerousing first at CounterPunch and later at Dissident Voice and Pacific Free Press. Over the years I’ve published hundreds of articles on various sites but in my heart I will always be a CounterPuncher.
There came a time when CounterPunch stopped posting the Chronicles and I stopped submitting. Then, a year or so past, I emailed Mr. Cockburn to ask why. Had I made mistakes? (Of course I had.) Had I been sloppy? (At times.) Had I offended the sensibilities of CounterPunch? (I didn’t know but there are occasions when the left can be as intolerant as the right.)
Looking back today, I suspect I knew the answer. Despite my own unwavering independence, confronted with war and threats of war, I have a tendency to become pragmatic during presidential elections. In 2004 and again in 2008 I advocated the lesser of evils on the grounds that even the slender difference between lesser and greater evil could translate to tens of thousands of lives if not more. I am not proud of that advocacy but I stand by it. In my view, George W. Bush was one of the worst and most destructive presidents in history and Senator John McCain was and is one of the last persons on earth to be trusted in possession of the nuclear trigger.
It enrages me that our system offers these kinds of choices: the corporate party that is openly eager for war and the corporate party that at least seems more restrained. The truth is: War is good business for incumbent presidents but that’s another matter.
I never received a response to my query but some time after the Chronicles began appearing on CounterPunch again. Who knows what if anything transpired behind the scenes? I certainly didn’t know that Mr. Cockburn was fighting for his life. Had I known, I would not have inquired. But I believe that either he or someone at his desk empathized with my cause and sanctioned the return of my voice at CounterPunch.
Mr. Cockburn was attacked for his dissenting views on many occasions and often became the target of liberal spokespersons and Democratic advocates. He never bent to pressure and he never backed down from a fight.
Alexander Cockburn was fiercely independent. He did not compromise and never wavered. He was a writer among writers and he wrote to the very end. In short, he was what I aspire to be and I thank him for the inspiration.
My working title for this piece was: RIP Alexander Cockburn. But then I realized that Mr. Cockburn would probably not be content with either rest or peace in an afterlife should there be one. I suspect he would be happier sitting in a tavern or café engaged in passionate discourse on the affairs of the day.
Here’s hoping he’s tipping one to Howard Zinn at this very moment. Carry on, Mr. Cockburn. Carry on.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS, GLOBAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
TIGER WINS 2012 BRITISH IN STUNNING COMEBACK
CLAIMS 15TH MAJOR CHAMPIONSHIP
Overcoming a triple bogey on the par-four sixth hole, Tiger Woods came roaring back to win the 141st British Open at the Royal Lytham & St. Annes golf course.
With his rivals for the Claret Jug wilting under the pressure of this granddaddy of major championships, Tiger stared down a ten-foot putt on the seventy-second hole, willing the ball in the side of the cup. He then waited to see if Brandt Snedeker, his last challenger on a brutal day of links golf, could hole out from six feet to join him in a playoff. When the putt slid off the cup to the right, Woods claimed his fifteenth major golf championship, leaving the record eighteen majors by Jack Nicklaus dead in his sights.
Those who watched this year’s Open know that didn’t happen but it could have. If the Royal and Ancient Golf Club had done its duty but outlawing the anchored putter, this championship might well have come down to Snedeker and Woods. Instead, we watched the belly putter beat the long putter to claim its first British Open.
Before last year at the PGA golf had gone 140 years without crowning any golfer who used a putter that many consider an unfair advantage. The anchored putter has now won three of the last four major golf championships.
Ironically, in 2004 this year's golfer of the year (Open Champion) Ernie Els called for the both the belly and the long putter to be banned. In 2011 he switched to the belly putter and saw his scoring average drop by a full stroke over a single round.
In October of last year he was quoted as saying: “As long as it’s legal, I’ll keep cheating like the rest of them.”
He has a point. What are the odds that Keegan Bradley or Webb Simpson could have won a major championship without the anchored putter? What are the odds that Els’ chief rival for this year’s Open could have done so without his long putter? What are the odds that Barry Bonds could have hit 73 home runs in one season without some form of chemical assistance? The answer is nil or very close to that level of probability. The difference is: Bonds was a great player who probably sacrificed three or four years of his career to become Babe Ruth for three seasons. He paid a price and is probably still paying a price in terms of his health and prospects for a long life. These championship golfers face no similar sacrifice.
Adam Scott, always an excellent ball striker, had lost his putting stroke when he switched to the long putter, which he anchors to his chest, before last year’s Masters. His tour rank for putting went from 143rd to 76th, an improvement that enables him to compete for major championships.
Ernie Els won the Open with a regulation putter in 2002. He is a gentleman and a great golfer but he knows in his heart he stole this one from more deserving competitors. This one deserves an asterisk.
The time has come to outlaw the anchored putter for the good of the game.
Jazz.
Overcoming a triple bogey on the par-four sixth hole, Tiger Woods came roaring back to win the 141st British Open at the Royal Lytham & St. Annes golf course.
With his rivals for the Claret Jug wilting under the pressure of this granddaddy of major championships, Tiger stared down a ten-foot putt on the seventy-second hole, willing the ball in the side of the cup. He then waited to see if Brandt Snedeker, his last challenger on a brutal day of links golf, could hole out from six feet to join him in a playoff. When the putt slid off the cup to the right, Woods claimed his fifteenth major golf championship, leaving the record eighteen majors by Jack Nicklaus dead in his sights.
Those who watched this year’s Open know that didn’t happen but it could have. If the Royal and Ancient Golf Club had done its duty but outlawing the anchored putter, this championship might well have come down to Snedeker and Woods. Instead, we watched the belly putter beat the long putter to claim its first British Open.
Before last year at the PGA golf had gone 140 years without crowning any golfer who used a putter that many consider an unfair advantage. The anchored putter has now won three of the last four major golf championships.
Ironically, in 2004 this year's golfer of the year (Open Champion) Ernie Els called for the both the belly and the long putter to be banned. In 2011 he switched to the belly putter and saw his scoring average drop by a full stroke over a single round.
In October of last year he was quoted as saying: “As long as it’s legal, I’ll keep cheating like the rest of them.”
He has a point. What are the odds that Keegan Bradley or Webb Simpson could have won a major championship without the anchored putter? What are the odds that Els’ chief rival for this year’s Open could have done so without his long putter? What are the odds that Barry Bonds could have hit 73 home runs in one season without some form of chemical assistance? The answer is nil or very close to that level of probability. The difference is: Bonds was a great player who probably sacrificed three or four years of his career to become Babe Ruth for three seasons. He paid a price and is probably still paying a price in terms of his health and prospects for a long life. These championship golfers face no similar sacrifice.
Adam Scott, always an excellent ball striker, had lost his putting stroke when he switched to the long putter, which he anchors to his chest, before last year’s Masters. His tour rank for putting went from 143rd to 76th, an improvement that enables him to compete for major championships.
Ernie Els won the Open with a regulation putter in 2002. He is a gentleman and a great golfer but he knows in his heart he stole this one from more deserving competitors. This one deserves an asterisk.
The time has come to outlaw the anchored putter for the good of the game.
Jazz.
Sunday, June 17, 2012
PERFORMANCE ENHANCING PUTTER CHEAPENS US OPEN
Webb Simpson carded a two-under par 68, saving pars and recording birdies down the stretch while others yielded to intense pressure, executing a brilliant save from a hole in the fringe of the 72nd hole, to win the 112th United States Open.
Simpson seems a nice enough guy and on this Fathers Day Sunday he played well enough to claim one of golf’s most cherished titles. Unfortunately, he became the second player in two years to win a major golf championship with a long grounded putter. Keegan Bradley (also a talented golfer and a very nice man) won the Professional Golf Association Championship in 2011 using the same kind of putter. In my mind and in the minds of many who love the game, the putter should be deemed illegal because it gives the player an unfair advantage.
Let me explain the physics of the putting stroke. A normal putting stroke with a normal putter must be controlled with the swinging action of the arms and wrists. Any slight rotation or deviation from center will cause the ball to run askew of its target. That is why so many players have a tendency to push or pull a three-foot putt under intense pressure.
The long putter of the type that Simpson and Bradley used to win major championships is planted on the chest. That grounds the club to the core of the body, which is fundamentally still during the putting stroke. The long grounded putter thus eliminates what all golfers know as “the yips.”
The question is: Why don’t all professional golfers use the grounded putter? I believe that most professional golfers feel as I do and do not wish to yield to the temptation. However, if this trend continues more and more golfers will do just that and the game on the greens will be fundamentally changed.
The PGA along with the Royal and Ancient Golf Club have outlawed putters before, most notably the long putter used between the legs pioneered by the immortal Sam Snead. They recognized that it gave him a great advantage and understood that other players would have to follow just to keep pace. After two major championships it is time they did the same for the grounded putter.
It cheapens the win and the game itself.
Jazz.
Simpson seems a nice enough guy and on this Fathers Day Sunday he played well enough to claim one of golf’s most cherished titles. Unfortunately, he became the second player in two years to win a major golf championship with a long grounded putter. Keegan Bradley (also a talented golfer and a very nice man) won the Professional Golf Association Championship in 2011 using the same kind of putter. In my mind and in the minds of many who love the game, the putter should be deemed illegal because it gives the player an unfair advantage.
Let me explain the physics of the putting stroke. A normal putting stroke with a normal putter must be controlled with the swinging action of the arms and wrists. Any slight rotation or deviation from center will cause the ball to run askew of its target. That is why so many players have a tendency to push or pull a three-foot putt under intense pressure.
The long putter of the type that Simpson and Bradley used to win major championships is planted on the chest. That grounds the club to the core of the body, which is fundamentally still during the putting stroke. The long grounded putter thus eliminates what all golfers know as “the yips.”
The question is: Why don’t all professional golfers use the grounded putter? I believe that most professional golfers feel as I do and do not wish to yield to the temptation. However, if this trend continues more and more golfers will do just that and the game on the greens will be fundamentally changed.
The PGA along with the Royal and Ancient Golf Club have outlawed putters before, most notably the long putter used between the legs pioneered by the immortal Sam Snead. They recognized that it gave him a great advantage and understood that other players would have to follow just to keep pace. After two major championships it is time they did the same for the grounded putter.
It cheapens the win and the game itself.
Jazz.
Saturday, June 02, 2012
OBAMA'S BETRAYAL OF CIVIL LIBERTIES
Re: Myth of Equality
By Beverly Rice
"We can make the case that this administration has held back the wave of rightwing oppression that his opponents would surely pursue . . ."
It would be a weak case. The Obama administration has racheted up the civil rights and Constitution trashing of the Bush/Cheney years.
-Obama signed off on the NDAA legislation that allow the president to order the indefinite detention of anyone he/she feels like messing with - regardless of probable cause. The administration pressed Congress to include US citizens in the mix of those who could be detained. The law contains broad language regarding who can be a potential target. Section 1031 defines a potential target as a person who is either a member of, or substantially supported, al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or “associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners.” This also includes “any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces.” The law doesn’t define what “associated forces” are, or what “engaging in hostilities” against the US means. And because the definition of a “terrorist” shifts according to political necessity, all of us – all over the world – are potential targets and eventual victims - including dissenters at home such as Occupy Wall Streeters, environmental and animal rights advocates.
-Obama signed off on the The “Trespass Bill” in March 2012. This law makes peaceable protest anywhere in the US a possible federal felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Anyone can be charged with a federal felony for trespassing on property that is under Secret Service protection, even if the supposed person is not aware that the area is under such protection. One can also be charged if he/she impedes or disrupts the orderly conduct of govt business or official functions.” This law effectively criminalizes any form of protest.
-More March Madness ensued with Obama's signing of the Natl Defense Resource Preparedness Act. This order allows the executive branch to take control of all food, energy, health and transportation resources in the service of “national defense,” even in times of declared peace. This order updates the previous one signed by Bill Clinton.
-Patriot Act? Obama voted for 2005 Patriot Act and its renewal. Media headlines touted stand against Act despite his vote for it.
-Obama vowed in 2008 to vote against FISA bill amendment giving immunity to telcom corp that cooperate w/Bush admin warrantless surveillance program. He then voted for bill in July of that year.
- Obama admin claims right to execute US citizens w/o charge or due process.
- Obama has prosecuted more whistleblowers than any of his predecessors.
- Obama told DOJ attorneys in 2009 to argue before San Fran Fed Dist Judge Walker that he should toss out the Shubert v Bush suit brought by Electronic Frontier Foundation. Suit challenges secret state driftnet surveillance of Americans’ electronic communications. April 2009: DOJ argued for dismissal of Jewel v NSA civil suit brought by ATT customers to stop company’s ongoing collaboration w/govt’s illegal surveillance. DOJ says if suit proceeds it would require govt disclosure of privileged state secrets. Arguing under Patriot Act that state immune from suit under the Wiretap Act and Stored Communications Act.
- In April, the Supreme Court ruled that jails can perform strip searches on new inmates regardless of the gravity of their alleged offenses. Obama DOJ lawyers spoke and filed briefs IN FAVOR of blanket strip searches. Instead of using arguments with regard to smuggling of contraband such as drugs and weapons, the admin's lawyer used hypothetical political protesters as the bad guys of his argument. Sounds like someone is more concerned with deterring political dissent as opposed to deterring more weed getting into jails. The hard core activist may be brave enough to not give a damn, but most would be protesters might think twice about risking a full body cavity strip search along with whatever other Gtimo-like actions the Gestapo guard feels like doing.
With Democrats like this, who needs Republicans? Obama isn't holding back right wing wave of oppression; he's throwing the sheeple into the waves and laughing as they drown in the River of Denial.
Beverly Rice
[Editor's Note: This was in response to "The Myth of Equal Rights" by Jack Random, posted on Counterpunch, Dissident Voice and Pacific Free Press.]
By Beverly Rice
"We can make the case that this administration has held back the wave of rightwing oppression that his opponents would surely pursue . . ."
It would be a weak case. The Obama administration has racheted up the civil rights and Constitution trashing of the Bush/Cheney years.
-Obama signed off on the NDAA legislation that allow the president to order the indefinite detention of anyone he/she feels like messing with - regardless of probable cause. The administration pressed Congress to include US citizens in the mix of those who could be detained. The law contains broad language regarding who can be a potential target. Section 1031 defines a potential target as a person who is either a member of, or substantially supported, al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or “associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners.” This also includes “any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces.” The law doesn’t define what “associated forces” are, or what “engaging in hostilities” against the US means. And because the definition of a “terrorist” shifts according to political necessity, all of us – all over the world – are potential targets and eventual victims - including dissenters at home such as Occupy Wall Streeters, environmental and animal rights advocates.
-Obama signed off on the The “Trespass Bill” in March 2012. This law makes peaceable protest anywhere in the US a possible federal felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Anyone can be charged with a federal felony for trespassing on property that is under Secret Service protection, even if the supposed person is not aware that the area is under such protection. One can also be charged if he/she impedes or disrupts the orderly conduct of govt business or official functions.” This law effectively criminalizes any form of protest.
-More March Madness ensued with Obama's signing of the Natl Defense Resource Preparedness Act. This order allows the executive branch to take control of all food, energy, health and transportation resources in the service of “national defense,” even in times of declared peace. This order updates the previous one signed by Bill Clinton.
-Patriot Act? Obama voted for 2005 Patriot Act and its renewal. Media headlines touted stand against Act despite his vote for it.
-Obama vowed in 2008 to vote against FISA bill amendment giving immunity to telcom corp that cooperate w/Bush admin warrantless surveillance program. He then voted for bill in July of that year.
- Obama admin claims right to execute US citizens w/o charge or due process.
- Obama has prosecuted more whistleblowers than any of his predecessors.
- Obama told DOJ attorneys in 2009 to argue before San Fran Fed Dist Judge Walker that he should toss out the Shubert v Bush suit brought by Electronic Frontier Foundation. Suit challenges secret state driftnet surveillance of Americans’ electronic communications. April 2009: DOJ argued for dismissal of Jewel v NSA civil suit brought by ATT customers to stop company’s ongoing collaboration w/govt’s illegal surveillance. DOJ says if suit proceeds it would require govt disclosure of privileged state secrets. Arguing under Patriot Act that state immune from suit under the Wiretap Act and Stored Communications Act.
- In April, the Supreme Court ruled that jails can perform strip searches on new inmates regardless of the gravity of their alleged offenses. Obama DOJ lawyers spoke and filed briefs IN FAVOR of blanket strip searches. Instead of using arguments with regard to smuggling of contraband such as drugs and weapons, the admin's lawyer used hypothetical political protesters as the bad guys of his argument. Sounds like someone is more concerned with deterring political dissent as opposed to deterring more weed getting into jails. The hard core activist may be brave enough to not give a damn, but most would be protesters might think twice about risking a full body cavity strip search along with whatever other Gtimo-like actions the Gestapo guard feels like doing.
With Democrats like this, who needs Republicans? Obama isn't holding back right wing wave of oppression; he's throwing the sheeple into the waves and laughing as they drown in the River of Denial.
Beverly Rice
[Editor's Note: This was in response to "The Myth of Equal Rights" by Jack Random, posted on Counterpunch, Dissident Voice and Pacific Free Press.]
Sunday, May 13, 2012
THE ARC OF HISTORY: GAY MARRIAGE TAKES CENTER STAGE
JAZZMAN CHRONICLES. DISSEMINATE FREELY.
By Jack Random
“The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”
Theodore Parker, American Abolitionist, circa 1850
“President Obama has shaken his fist…at the same God who created and defined marriage.”
Franklin Graham, American Evangelical, May 10, 2012
Let us hope that the quote (frequently misquoted as “the arc of history”) made famous by Martin Luther King, Jr. and often cited by President Barack Obama has not reached the level of cliché. For when words, however profound or true, reach that level of familiarity they cease to possess the power of their intended meaning. They may be pleasant to the ear but they fail to pierce the heart and soul where change begins.
To many of us the issue of gay marriage is about justice and equality, about men and women, friends and family members and the real-life consequence of social policy. But to some it is about God. The latter rarely ask whose god, which god, at what stage of spiritual development or in which moral universe.
No. These individuals claim a certain superiority to the rest of us, a direct knowledge and connection to the one true God of all being across immeasurable time and space.
Theirs is the same god that once decreed slavery the natural order of human nature. It is the same god that once justified the murderous misadventures of the Crusades. It is the same god that directed manifest destiny to the attempted genocide of the Native American peoples. It is the same god that led men in robes to torture free thinkers who did not match their certitude of faith in the Inquisition. We should have little doubt it is the same god that informed the Third Reich in the Holocaust not only against Jews and Gypsies but against homosexuals as well.
It is a god of a thousand wars and cruelty beyond belief, a god of hatred, intolerance and bloody vengeance.
In the third millennium we have had enough of these gods that divide us and lead us in violent conflict. We are tired of brutal, racist and homophobic gods that lack the common decency of ordinary people. These are not divine; they are the creations of men.
It is time to recognize that the gods they are a changing. You can keep your old prejudiced religions and house them in temples of gold or chapels adorned in sequin but the gods of a new moral universe, the gods that speak to this century, will be gods of tolerance and kindness, gods of justice and equality, gods that uphold the universal creed of human dignity.
You who preach hatred and oppression (whether railing to the rafters or gently spoken), your time is past. Go back in your caves and castles, your gated communities, your prisons of demented thought.
We are all god’s children or we are none and if you cannot love equally then you cannot love at all.
We choose to bend with the arc of history just as those who came before us fought for our rights and dignity as human beings. You are the past and we are the future. We have a vision of a time when rights are not conditioned on gender or color or sexual predisposition. We see a time when all men and women are free of prejudice under the law.
We know that every minority and oppressed community has had to fight for decades and centuries against entrenched and powerful oppressors before change could be accepted. We know also that change is inevitable and that it will get better as long as people are willing to stand up and be counted.
We know as well that the fight will never really end. The struggle will go on through this generation and the next.
We know that black citizens and women have never achieved equity in opportunity or pay. We know that minorities are not afforded equal treatment in the workplace.
We know that schools in neighborhoods where the majority is of darker skin are under-funded and inadequate. We know that millions of immigrants survive as a permanent underclass in the shadows of American society, their rights trampled and their status uncertain.
Yes, those of us who believe in a world freed of its former prejudice recognize that the struggle will go on, must go on, but at least in this case the line is clear: Gays and lesbians cannot achieve equal rights without full access to the institution of marriage.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS, GLOBAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.
By Jack Random
“The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”
Theodore Parker, American Abolitionist, circa 1850
“President Obama has shaken his fist…at the same God who created and defined marriage.”
Franklin Graham, American Evangelical, May 10, 2012
Let us hope that the quote (frequently misquoted as “the arc of history”) made famous by Martin Luther King, Jr. and often cited by President Barack Obama has not reached the level of cliché. For when words, however profound or true, reach that level of familiarity they cease to possess the power of their intended meaning. They may be pleasant to the ear but they fail to pierce the heart and soul where change begins.
To many of us the issue of gay marriage is about justice and equality, about men and women, friends and family members and the real-life consequence of social policy. But to some it is about God. The latter rarely ask whose god, which god, at what stage of spiritual development or in which moral universe.
No. These individuals claim a certain superiority to the rest of us, a direct knowledge and connection to the one true God of all being across immeasurable time and space.
Theirs is the same god that once decreed slavery the natural order of human nature. It is the same god that once justified the murderous misadventures of the Crusades. It is the same god that directed manifest destiny to the attempted genocide of the Native American peoples. It is the same god that led men in robes to torture free thinkers who did not match their certitude of faith in the Inquisition. We should have little doubt it is the same god that informed the Third Reich in the Holocaust not only against Jews and Gypsies but against homosexuals as well.
It is a god of a thousand wars and cruelty beyond belief, a god of hatred, intolerance and bloody vengeance.
In the third millennium we have had enough of these gods that divide us and lead us in violent conflict. We are tired of brutal, racist and homophobic gods that lack the common decency of ordinary people. These are not divine; they are the creations of men.
It is time to recognize that the gods they are a changing. You can keep your old prejudiced religions and house them in temples of gold or chapels adorned in sequin but the gods of a new moral universe, the gods that speak to this century, will be gods of tolerance and kindness, gods of justice and equality, gods that uphold the universal creed of human dignity.
You who preach hatred and oppression (whether railing to the rafters or gently spoken), your time is past. Go back in your caves and castles, your gated communities, your prisons of demented thought.
We are all god’s children or we are none and if you cannot love equally then you cannot love at all.
We choose to bend with the arc of history just as those who came before us fought for our rights and dignity as human beings. You are the past and we are the future. We have a vision of a time when rights are not conditioned on gender or color or sexual predisposition. We see a time when all men and women are free of prejudice under the law.
We know that every minority and oppressed community has had to fight for decades and centuries against entrenched and powerful oppressors before change could be accepted. We know also that change is inevitable and that it will get better as long as people are willing to stand up and be counted.
We know as well that the fight will never really end. The struggle will go on through this generation and the next.
We know that black citizens and women have never achieved equity in opportunity or pay. We know that minorities are not afforded equal treatment in the workplace.
We know that schools in neighborhoods where the majority is of darker skin are under-funded and inadequate. We know that millions of immigrants survive as a permanent underclass in the shadows of American society, their rights trampled and their status uncertain.
Yes, those of us who believe in a world freed of its former prejudice recognize that the struggle will go on, must go on, but at least in this case the line is clear: Gays and lesbians cannot achieve equal rights without full access to the institution of marriage.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS, GLOBAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
SELLING WAR IN SYRIA & IRAN
JAZZMAN CHRONICLES. DISSEMINATE FREELY.
By Jack Random
“The bond between our two countries is unbreakable. The United States will always have Israel’s back when it comes to Israel’s security.”
Barack Obama to Bibi Netanyahu, March 5, 2012
The atrocities of war, like a deranged soldier killing innocent women and children, may momentarily shock our senses but they do not come as a surprise. “War is hell” is cliché because it is the most accurate description we can imagine. War is a shadow on the human spirit that lingers well beyond the last bullet. It is a curse on the soul that never lifts.
There is no more violent and destructive act humans can inflict upon themselves than war. History may argue that war is an inevitable consequence of human nature but to engage in war without profound deliberation and reticence is to commit a crime against all humankind.
And yet, after ten years of war in Afghanistan and nine years in Iraq, we continue to hear the beating of the drums for war in Syria and Iran growing louder and louder as the November election approaches.
What does it say about our culture and our people when politicians routinely call for war to raise their standing with the electorate? We will not have advanced as a nation until a call for peace elicits the same response.
Let us be honest about what we have achieved in a decade of war. Forget the costs. Forget that we have lost thousands of our soldiers. Forget the tens of thousands maimed. Forget the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghan lives we have taken or destroyed. Forget the four trillion dollars added to our national debt.
Forget all of this. Pretend for a moment it was without cost.
What have we gained? Are we better off now or were we better off then with a contained Saddam Hussein leading Iraq and the Taliban leading Afghanistan?
Strategically, there should be no question that we were far better off before the wars. Under their despotic leaders, Iraq and Afghanistan were at least functional. Now they are torn and fractured. Civil war is all but inevitable in Iraq and Afghanistan will inevitably revert to a tribal nation ruled by warlords from the moment we leave until the next foolish invader seeks to conquer them.
In Iraq, where once we had an uneasy alliance, we have helped to create a new nation that more and more will look to Iran for guidance and support.
In Afghanistan, where once the people despised the Russian invaders, now they despise us. Why wouldn’t they? We kill and destroy with impunity. We burn their holy book and inform them who is fit to rule and who is not.
Neither country is better off for our efforts and neither will miss us when we go. They will seek to exploit us as we have exploited them, choosing their nations as a battleground for the global war on terror.
To countless Iraqis and Afghans we are the terrorists and that shadow will not lift for generations to come.
The law of unintended consequences might have been conceived with war in mind. We did not intend to leverage Iranian power in the Middle East. We did not intend to trigger the acceleration of the Iranian nuclear weapon program. But that is exactly what we did with our war, our declaration of the axis of evil, and our occupation of Iraq.
Iran did not pose a threat to us or to Israel before the war and it does not pose a threat today. Despite the vitriol of Iran’s largely figurehead president, Iran is not an aggressive nation. Iran did not initiate war with Saddam’s Iraq (Saddam did) and Iran has not attacked any nation in the modern era.
All accusations of Iranian aggression rest on Iran’s relationship to Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. That Iran supports the Palestinian people in their struggle for a homeland is unquestioned but whether that cause is aggressive is open to considerable deliberation.
The mainstream media push for war in Syria suffered a major but little noted setback when Hamas, an organization with both political and military branches, announced its support for the Syrian opposition.
Up to that point, CNN, Fox and the Neocons of the American Enterprise Institute were enthusiastic in their call for war against the government of Bashar al-Assad. After the declaration of support from Hamas, things have become ever more complicated with rumors and accusations. Both the Saudis and Al Qaeda are said to be arming and supporting the rebels while the Iranian Quds Force is bolstering the government.
How can we form an alliance with organizations we have declared terrorists?
Murphy’s Law (anything that can go wrong will) and the second law of thermodynamics (all systems tend toward disintegration) might have been conceived with Syria in mind. If you saw the movie Syriana and found yourself baffled and confused, don’t blame the film; blame the subject matter. If you’re look for an enigma wrapped in a mystery, welcome to Syria.
The Syrian opposition to the Assad regime is like a seven-headed beast. To side with the regime is to claim allegiance with a brutal dictator and war criminal but to side with the opposition is to form an alliance with Hamas and Al Qaeda. It is a gamble of epic proportions and one that could trigger blowback, civil war and atrocities on a scale we cannot yet imagine. The minority Christians and Alawites fear genocide if the Assad regime is toppled.
We cannot go to war in Syria because we have no clue as to whom the good, the bad and the worst parties are and we cannot predict the consequences.
We cannot go to war in Iran because we know what the consequences would be. With the first bomb or missile directed at Tehran’s nuclear facilities, the price of gasoline would shoot for the stars. If we engaged Iran in a military showdown the result would be quagmire and the national debt would explode.
You might recall that every Republican candidate for president not named Ron Paul has all but promised to wage war in both Syria and Iran, on the one hand, and to balance the national debt on the other. Now they are promising cheap gas.
They are not shooting straight. They are in fact creating an alternative reality where the laws of cause and effect are governed by what we wish.
That is not the world we live in.
Every Republican candidate not named Ron Paul has promised to stand behind Israel and its aggressive Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu under any and all circumstance. That would be unfortunate.
It is to the great shame of the Israeli people that they have placed in power a man of war at this critical time in history. Netanyahu is the Israeli equivalent of Senator John McCain, who never saw a war he didn’t like. He is like the village bully whose solution to every conflict is physical and whose idea of negotiations begins with F and ends with U.
Netanyahu has effectively obstructed and sabotaged negotiations with the Palestinians at every opportunity. One senses that he is all too eager to launch the strike on Iran.
He has taken the hard line by refusing the right of return, refusing the possibility of sharing Jerusalem, demanding unconditional recognition of Israel and demanding the demilitarization of the Palestinians.
What is left to negotiate when Netanyahu will not even acknowledge the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people? And the settlements move ahead, claiming mile after mile, neighborhood after neighborhood of Palestinian land. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad famously said he wanted to wipe Israel off the map but Netanyahu is effectively doing so to Palestine.
Are Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist organizations or are they simply a necessary response to Israeli aggression?
What is happening in Syria is horrific but we have no viable options.
The only policy that makes sense in Syria, Iran and throughout the region is negotiation and restraint but such a policy does not appear possible given the political realities of an election year. Our politicians take turns delivering a harder line than their opponents and we are bound to support Israel no matter how belligerent its policies and aggressive its actions.
Somehow this must change. We must grow an electorate that rejects the path of war and values the path of negotiated compromise. Given the ongoing disasters of Afghanistan and Iraq it should be a lesson learned but clearly it is not.
The greatest threat America now faces does not come from Iran or Pakistan or terrorists. The greatest threat is that Bibi Netanyahu will take matters into his own hands by launching a preemptive strike against Iran.
Should it happen, he will pass the baton to us and demand that we keep our word.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS, GLOBAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.
By Jack Random
“The bond between our two countries is unbreakable. The United States will always have Israel’s back when it comes to Israel’s security.”
Barack Obama to Bibi Netanyahu, March 5, 2012
The atrocities of war, like a deranged soldier killing innocent women and children, may momentarily shock our senses but they do not come as a surprise. “War is hell” is cliché because it is the most accurate description we can imagine. War is a shadow on the human spirit that lingers well beyond the last bullet. It is a curse on the soul that never lifts.
There is no more violent and destructive act humans can inflict upon themselves than war. History may argue that war is an inevitable consequence of human nature but to engage in war without profound deliberation and reticence is to commit a crime against all humankind.
And yet, after ten years of war in Afghanistan and nine years in Iraq, we continue to hear the beating of the drums for war in Syria and Iran growing louder and louder as the November election approaches.
What does it say about our culture and our people when politicians routinely call for war to raise their standing with the electorate? We will not have advanced as a nation until a call for peace elicits the same response.
Let us be honest about what we have achieved in a decade of war. Forget the costs. Forget that we have lost thousands of our soldiers. Forget the tens of thousands maimed. Forget the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghan lives we have taken or destroyed. Forget the four trillion dollars added to our national debt.
Forget all of this. Pretend for a moment it was without cost.
What have we gained? Are we better off now or were we better off then with a contained Saddam Hussein leading Iraq and the Taliban leading Afghanistan?
Strategically, there should be no question that we were far better off before the wars. Under their despotic leaders, Iraq and Afghanistan were at least functional. Now they are torn and fractured. Civil war is all but inevitable in Iraq and Afghanistan will inevitably revert to a tribal nation ruled by warlords from the moment we leave until the next foolish invader seeks to conquer them.
In Iraq, where once we had an uneasy alliance, we have helped to create a new nation that more and more will look to Iran for guidance and support.
In Afghanistan, where once the people despised the Russian invaders, now they despise us. Why wouldn’t they? We kill and destroy with impunity. We burn their holy book and inform them who is fit to rule and who is not.
Neither country is better off for our efforts and neither will miss us when we go. They will seek to exploit us as we have exploited them, choosing their nations as a battleground for the global war on terror.
To countless Iraqis and Afghans we are the terrorists and that shadow will not lift for generations to come.
The law of unintended consequences might have been conceived with war in mind. We did not intend to leverage Iranian power in the Middle East. We did not intend to trigger the acceleration of the Iranian nuclear weapon program. But that is exactly what we did with our war, our declaration of the axis of evil, and our occupation of Iraq.
Iran did not pose a threat to us or to Israel before the war and it does not pose a threat today. Despite the vitriol of Iran’s largely figurehead president, Iran is not an aggressive nation. Iran did not initiate war with Saddam’s Iraq (Saddam did) and Iran has not attacked any nation in the modern era.
All accusations of Iranian aggression rest on Iran’s relationship to Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. That Iran supports the Palestinian people in their struggle for a homeland is unquestioned but whether that cause is aggressive is open to considerable deliberation.
The mainstream media push for war in Syria suffered a major but little noted setback when Hamas, an organization with both political and military branches, announced its support for the Syrian opposition.
Up to that point, CNN, Fox and the Neocons of the American Enterprise Institute were enthusiastic in their call for war against the government of Bashar al-Assad. After the declaration of support from Hamas, things have become ever more complicated with rumors and accusations. Both the Saudis and Al Qaeda are said to be arming and supporting the rebels while the Iranian Quds Force is bolstering the government.
How can we form an alliance with organizations we have declared terrorists?
Murphy’s Law (anything that can go wrong will) and the second law of thermodynamics (all systems tend toward disintegration) might have been conceived with Syria in mind. If you saw the movie Syriana and found yourself baffled and confused, don’t blame the film; blame the subject matter. If you’re look for an enigma wrapped in a mystery, welcome to Syria.
The Syrian opposition to the Assad regime is like a seven-headed beast. To side with the regime is to claim allegiance with a brutal dictator and war criminal but to side with the opposition is to form an alliance with Hamas and Al Qaeda. It is a gamble of epic proportions and one that could trigger blowback, civil war and atrocities on a scale we cannot yet imagine. The minority Christians and Alawites fear genocide if the Assad regime is toppled.
We cannot go to war in Syria because we have no clue as to whom the good, the bad and the worst parties are and we cannot predict the consequences.
We cannot go to war in Iran because we know what the consequences would be. With the first bomb or missile directed at Tehran’s nuclear facilities, the price of gasoline would shoot for the stars. If we engaged Iran in a military showdown the result would be quagmire and the national debt would explode.
You might recall that every Republican candidate for president not named Ron Paul has all but promised to wage war in both Syria and Iran, on the one hand, and to balance the national debt on the other. Now they are promising cheap gas.
They are not shooting straight. They are in fact creating an alternative reality where the laws of cause and effect are governed by what we wish.
That is not the world we live in.
Every Republican candidate not named Ron Paul has promised to stand behind Israel and its aggressive Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu under any and all circumstance. That would be unfortunate.
It is to the great shame of the Israeli people that they have placed in power a man of war at this critical time in history. Netanyahu is the Israeli equivalent of Senator John McCain, who never saw a war he didn’t like. He is like the village bully whose solution to every conflict is physical and whose idea of negotiations begins with F and ends with U.
Netanyahu has effectively obstructed and sabotaged negotiations with the Palestinians at every opportunity. One senses that he is all too eager to launch the strike on Iran.
He has taken the hard line by refusing the right of return, refusing the possibility of sharing Jerusalem, demanding unconditional recognition of Israel and demanding the demilitarization of the Palestinians.
What is left to negotiate when Netanyahu will not even acknowledge the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people? And the settlements move ahead, claiming mile after mile, neighborhood after neighborhood of Palestinian land. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad famously said he wanted to wipe Israel off the map but Netanyahu is effectively doing so to Palestine.
Are Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist organizations or are they simply a necessary response to Israeli aggression?
What is happening in Syria is horrific but we have no viable options.
The only policy that makes sense in Syria, Iran and throughout the region is negotiation and restraint but such a policy does not appear possible given the political realities of an election year. Our politicians take turns delivering a harder line than their opponents and we are bound to support Israel no matter how belligerent its policies and aggressive its actions.
Somehow this must change. We must grow an electorate that rejects the path of war and values the path of negotiated compromise. Given the ongoing disasters of Afghanistan and Iraq it should be a lesson learned but clearly it is not.
The greatest threat America now faces does not come from Iran or Pakistan or terrorists. The greatest threat is that Bibi Netanyahu will take matters into his own hands by launching a preemptive strike against Iran.
Should it happen, he will pass the baton to us and demand that we keep our word.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS, GLOBAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Rotten Apple: A Symbol of Labor Exploitation
JAZZMAN CHRONICLES. DISSEMINATE FREELY.
ROTTEN APPLE:
A SYMBOL OF LABOR EXPLOITATION
By Jack Random
In 1984 I bought one of the first Apple Macintosh computers to roll off the line in Cupertino, California. At 132 K ROM (hardly enough to power a toaster by today’s standards), the Mac came loaded with a serviceable writing program (Mac Write) and an ingenious graphics program (Mac Paint) and the age of personal computing was born in earnest.
In those days Apple was a fiercely independent alternative to IBM, the corporate beast that monopolized the computer industry. Apple was a symbol of American ingenuity and innovation. Apple users were loyal to the company and we believed that Apple was loyal to us. We remained loyal even through substandard products because we believe that Apple had a social consciousness.
I don’t know when Apple changed. It doesn’t really matter. But when Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels delivered the Republican response to the State of the Union address, trumpeting the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs as a job creator, I knew something was rotten to the core. Daniels was right about Apple job creation. The trouble is some 95% of those jobs were created in China under deplorable working conditions.
In America the very same politicians whose policies wreaked havoc on the global economy spend most of their time attempting to exploit the devastation by attacking what remains of the rights of labor. Too often on the so-called liberal establishment falls silent on the right to organize and the right to collective bargaining (an alternative to a general strike).
In Europe the same voices that claim to represent the left are planting their staffs with the anti-labor forces of austerity.
The recent New York Times article exposing Apple’s exploitation of Chinese labor (“How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work” by Charles Duhigg and Keith Bradsher, January 21, 2012) reads more like a rationalization if not an outright defense. On international labor rights the Times is as bankrupt as the Greek treasury. An unashamed proponent of Clintonian Free Trade, the Times argued with an unmistakable tone of admiration that Chinese workers at substandard wages (workers at the leading Apple manufacturer, Foxconn Technology, recently received two wage increases from an equivalent of $135 per month to roughly $300 per month) were so motivated that they could be roused to work at a moment’s notice. They frequently work 24 or 36-hour shifts at tedious jobs with little complaint (except for the occasional riot or threatened mass suicide). The story noted that there were plenty more sweatshops making complementary products just down the road.
The Times glossed over the rumored suicide rate and the fact that the company running the largest sweatshop on the planet had to install nets outside its walls to prevent workers from jumping to their deaths.
The Times’ Nicholas Kristof and his fellow compassionate compliciters will tell you that the workers are better off as exploited labor than they otherwise would be. They could be back on the farm tending rice fields at a meager existence or worse; they might be on the streets of protest in open rebellion.
There is little to distinguish the defense of Apple and labor exploitation from the antebellum defense of slavery. The advocates of slavery also argued with characteristic audacity that the slaves were better off than they would have been on their own accord. They had roofs over their heads, clothing, medical care and meals on the table. They were slaves, subject to beatings, inhuman treatment and whatever torture can be imagined, but at least they had food to eat. Their white masters could rape the women at will and the men could do nothing about it but at least their basic needs were fulfilled. If not for a few rabble rousers, malcontents and radical idealists, the slaves would have been happy to live out their lives, generation after generation, in contented servitude.
We recognize now that such arguments are an affront to human decency but in the land of antebellum slave plantations they were tolerated if not embraced.
It is by no means admirable that workers can be roused from sleep at any time of the day or night to work another twelve-hour shift. It is not laudable that workers can be forced to work in unsafe environments with toxic chemicals and hazardous waste. It is not acceptable that children of twelve are subjected to these conditions. When workers riot and threaten mass suicide it is not a sign of relative wellbeing.
I know that Apple is not alone. Foxconn has contracts with Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Sony, Motorola, Nokia, Toshiba, Samsung, Amazon, Nintendo and IBM.
Apple has responded predictably to the negative publicity of the Times report and the potent monologue of Mike Daisey now playing at the Public Theater in New York (“The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs”). It has hired an “independent” watchdog to monitor and report on labor abuse in China and elsewhere. Unfortunately, that organization receives its funding from the industry.
Apple perceives labor abuse as a public relations problem because Apple does not care about workers in China or anywhere else. Apple cares about the bottom line and Apple is afraid that this wave of negative publicity will forever tarnish its image and affect its profit ratio.
I know the futility of calling for a boycott. We are addicted to our intelligent devices and there are no viable alternatives. We cannot for a moment believe that the sweatshops in Indonesia or anywhere else where the economy thrives on cheap labor are any better than those in China.
I am calling for a different response and one that would have an impact on the bottom line. We do not need the latest gadget. We do not need the immediate upgrade to the latest technological innovation. We can wait.
That is what I am suggesting that every conscientious consumer should do. Delay that next purchase. Delay it as long as possible. Make that purchase only when it is necessary.
If enough people take this approach, Apple and all the others will notice. They will make changes. They may not move their plants back home immediately but in time, who knows?
If they were to move back home, you can bet that those 750,000 Chinese jobs would translate to 500,000 robotic devices and a handful of managers and maintenance crews.
So be it. If they continue to operate as they are, they need to know that the fight for labor rights does not end at our shores.
Jazz.
[This article posted by Counterpunch, February 16, 2012.]
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS, GLOBAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.
ROTTEN APPLE:
A SYMBOL OF LABOR EXPLOITATION
By Jack Random
In 1984 I bought one of the first Apple Macintosh computers to roll off the line in Cupertino, California. At 132 K ROM (hardly enough to power a toaster by today’s standards), the Mac came loaded with a serviceable writing program (Mac Write) and an ingenious graphics program (Mac Paint) and the age of personal computing was born in earnest.
In those days Apple was a fiercely independent alternative to IBM, the corporate beast that monopolized the computer industry. Apple was a symbol of American ingenuity and innovation. Apple users were loyal to the company and we believed that Apple was loyal to us. We remained loyal even through substandard products because we believe that Apple had a social consciousness.
I don’t know when Apple changed. It doesn’t really matter. But when Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels delivered the Republican response to the State of the Union address, trumpeting the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs as a job creator, I knew something was rotten to the core. Daniels was right about Apple job creation. The trouble is some 95% of those jobs were created in China under deplorable working conditions.
In America the very same politicians whose policies wreaked havoc on the global economy spend most of their time attempting to exploit the devastation by attacking what remains of the rights of labor. Too often on the so-called liberal establishment falls silent on the right to organize and the right to collective bargaining (an alternative to a general strike).
In Europe the same voices that claim to represent the left are planting their staffs with the anti-labor forces of austerity.
The recent New York Times article exposing Apple’s exploitation of Chinese labor (“How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work” by Charles Duhigg and Keith Bradsher, January 21, 2012) reads more like a rationalization if not an outright defense. On international labor rights the Times is as bankrupt as the Greek treasury. An unashamed proponent of Clintonian Free Trade, the Times argued with an unmistakable tone of admiration that Chinese workers at substandard wages (workers at the leading Apple manufacturer, Foxconn Technology, recently received two wage increases from an equivalent of $135 per month to roughly $300 per month) were so motivated that they could be roused to work at a moment’s notice. They frequently work 24 or 36-hour shifts at tedious jobs with little complaint (except for the occasional riot or threatened mass suicide). The story noted that there were plenty more sweatshops making complementary products just down the road.
The Times glossed over the rumored suicide rate and the fact that the company running the largest sweatshop on the planet had to install nets outside its walls to prevent workers from jumping to their deaths.
The Times’ Nicholas Kristof and his fellow compassionate compliciters will tell you that the workers are better off as exploited labor than they otherwise would be. They could be back on the farm tending rice fields at a meager existence or worse; they might be on the streets of protest in open rebellion.
There is little to distinguish the defense of Apple and labor exploitation from the antebellum defense of slavery. The advocates of slavery also argued with characteristic audacity that the slaves were better off than they would have been on their own accord. They had roofs over their heads, clothing, medical care and meals on the table. They were slaves, subject to beatings, inhuman treatment and whatever torture can be imagined, but at least they had food to eat. Their white masters could rape the women at will and the men could do nothing about it but at least their basic needs were fulfilled. If not for a few rabble rousers, malcontents and radical idealists, the slaves would have been happy to live out their lives, generation after generation, in contented servitude.
We recognize now that such arguments are an affront to human decency but in the land of antebellum slave plantations they were tolerated if not embraced.
It is by no means admirable that workers can be roused from sleep at any time of the day or night to work another twelve-hour shift. It is not laudable that workers can be forced to work in unsafe environments with toxic chemicals and hazardous waste. It is not acceptable that children of twelve are subjected to these conditions. When workers riot and threaten mass suicide it is not a sign of relative wellbeing.
I know that Apple is not alone. Foxconn has contracts with Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Sony, Motorola, Nokia, Toshiba, Samsung, Amazon, Nintendo and IBM.
Apple has responded predictably to the negative publicity of the Times report and the potent monologue of Mike Daisey now playing at the Public Theater in New York (“The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs”). It has hired an “independent” watchdog to monitor and report on labor abuse in China and elsewhere. Unfortunately, that organization receives its funding from the industry.
Apple perceives labor abuse as a public relations problem because Apple does not care about workers in China or anywhere else. Apple cares about the bottom line and Apple is afraid that this wave of negative publicity will forever tarnish its image and affect its profit ratio.
I know the futility of calling for a boycott. We are addicted to our intelligent devices and there are no viable alternatives. We cannot for a moment believe that the sweatshops in Indonesia or anywhere else where the economy thrives on cheap labor are any better than those in China.
I am calling for a different response and one that would have an impact on the bottom line. We do not need the latest gadget. We do not need the immediate upgrade to the latest technological innovation. We can wait.
That is what I am suggesting that every conscientious consumer should do. Delay that next purchase. Delay it as long as possible. Make that purchase only when it is necessary.
If enough people take this approach, Apple and all the others will notice. They will make changes. They may not move their plants back home immediately but in time, who knows?
If they were to move back home, you can bet that those 750,000 Chinese jobs would translate to 500,000 robotic devices and a handful of managers and maintenance crews.
So be it. If they continue to operate as they are, they need to know that the fight for labor rights does not end at our shores.
Jazz.
[This article posted by Counterpunch, February 16, 2012.]
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS, GLOBAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.
Monday, December 19, 2011
The Coming Explosion & Omission in Osawatomie
Regarding Omission in Osawatomie (a Jazzman Chronicle reprinted below):
I completely agree with your thesis. There was a great poet by the name of Langston Hughes with whom Barack Obama would be well served to heed in his neglect of the rhetoric he used to obtain the office of the POTUS. In the final stanza of the poem, it reflects the inevitable outcome of the body politic. There will be an uprising at some point; an explosion!
Wakiza L. McQueen
HARLEM by Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
or fester like a sore—
and then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
December 14, 2011
A Line Obama Will Not Cross
Omission in Osawatomie
by JACK RANDOM
Like the sirens to Odysseus, President Obama’s address at Osawatomie, Kansas, was pleasing to the progressive ear but if you allow its seductive tone to capture you, it could well prove fatal to the cause.
We have heard this song before. It takes us back to the soaring oratory that uplifted the masses and propelled a one-term senator to the presidency. Then as now, the president correctly and brilliantly deconstructs the problem: The middle class is under siege, hemorrhaging skilled and unskilled jobs to cheap labor markets overseas, resulting in depressed wages and declining benefits, depleted retirement funds, union busting and unregulated industries.
But, then as now, his solutions fail to approach the heart of the matter. Proclaiming a new world economy based on innovation, he advocates government funding for research and education, science and engineering, progressive taxation, regulation, consumer protection and a commitment to building and rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure.
These are all worthy ideas that the president strings together with a rising intonation in order to avoid the obvious, central and core solution. Consequently, he builds to a dull crescendo, sounding a sour chord and all too familiar refrain: Technology and innovation will save us.
The president prides himself on his knowledge of history, so much so that he summoned the memory of Theodore Roosevelt in this address. Unfortunately, history does not uphold his case. Technology and innovation have never sustained the middle class. They have created fortunes and whole industries but how it affects the working people depends entirely on where the industries are located and how the workers are paid.
Take a good look at the major innovations of the Free Trade era: The personal computer, the laptop and the smart phone are all made in China and serviced in India. Solar technology created advanced solar collectors and panels, creating a thriving industry in China. Hybrid vehicles may be assembled in America but by-and-large they are constructed in foreign nations where the cost of labor trumps all other concerns. Even our bridges are made in China.
Within the parameters of a global Free Trade economy, there is no innovation that can revive American industry. The idea that innovation and education are going to create jobs for 300 million Americans is a pipe dream, a fantasy and, in this case, an excuse not to address the heart of the matter.
The obvious answer and the one that perpetually evades the president and the majority of his party is Fair Trade. American workers can compete and win on a fair playing field but no one can compete with dirt-cheap labor. The masterminds behind the new global economy have built corporate profits by exploiting the cheapest possible labor overseas and simultaneously undermining labor in our own country.
What is Fair Trade?
It is built on the conviction that all nations that engage our nation in trade should uphold the rights of labor, including the right to organize, and pay their workers living wages.
How would Fair Trade be implemented?
The most direct route would be to reserve preferred trade status to nations that protect the rights of labor, provide basic health and retirement benefits, and pay living wages to their workforce. All other nations would be subject to a tariff proportionate to the cost of compliance.
The message to China, India and all other nations that now benefit from the imbalance of trade would be clear: Pay your workers at home or pay to protect our workers at the border.
Human rights and the critical issue of carbon emissions also come into the equation but if the goal is rebuilding American industry, then the heart of the matter is labor.
Why is Fair Trade off the table?
There was a time when simply raising the cry of “Protectionism” could defeat any such proposal but after decades of job exportation, Americans are losing their fear of words. Protecting our workers in the current environment is a moral imperative.
Accordingly, Fair Trade is alive and well in the United States Congress. Even Republicans in the House and Senate are afraid to go on record in opposition. The Trade Reform Accountability Development and Employment Act proposed by Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Representative Michael Michaud of Maine would fundamentally reshape America’s trade policy, bringing labor to the forefront.
Unfortunately, the silence of the White House enables congressional leadership to keep the measure from coming to the floor for a vote. President Obama presses forward on Free Trade deals with Korea, Columbia and Panama, ensuring the exportation of jobs to even more nations.
Even progressive economists are reluctant to address trade policy, preferring to attack trade imbalance through so-called currency manipulation. The idea is if our trading partners increased the value of their currency it would be more expensive to buy their goods and less expensive for them to buy ours. If the revaluation were large enough and sustained, it would certainly have an effect.
The problem with the currency approach is that it allows the tenets of Free Trade to stand. It does not end the anti-labor measures enforced by austerity regimes under the dictates of the International Monetary Fund. That is why even the prototypical corporate candidate, Republican Mitt Romney, feels free to advocate punitive actions against China based on the charge of currency manipulation. It leaves workers out on the lurch and the rights of labor out of the picture. Moreover, all nations manipulate currency. That is the primary function of the Federal Reserve.
Of course, if we were to insist that other nations respect the rights of labor we would have to do a better job of protecting our own workers. We could no longer allow individual states to effectively crush unions with so-called Right to Work laws. We could no longer allow legislative attacks on collective bargaining without paying a price.
It is as if the entire liberal establishment, from the politicians to the intellectuals to the media, signed on to Bill Clinton’s Free Trade mandate back in the eighties and have adhered to that agreement ever since.
It was a deal with the devil, a betrayal of every working man and woman not only in America but throughout the world, and it demands to be revisited now.
In 2008 candidate Barack Obama said, “I voted against CAFTA, never supported NAFTA, and will not support NAFTA–style trade agreements in the future. While NAFTA gave broad rights to investors, it paid only lip service to the rights of labor and the importance of environmental protection.”
Where is that candidate now? He disappeared upon taking the oath of office.
In retrospect, it seems amply clear that candidate Obama made a deal with Wall Street, his leading campaign contributors, before he embarked on his road to the White House. Fair Trade was off limits. It was the one territory he could not visit. It was the one line he could not cross.
An original sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act (an affirmation of the right to organize and establish a union by majority vote) had President Obama remembered his labor roots in his address at Osawatomie, had he raised the banner of Fair Trade to initiate his campaign for a second term, then that address might have stood alongside Teddy Roosevelt’s New Nationalism or Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal inaugural address.
As it stands, it is the perfect symbol of his presidency to date: A promise unfulfilled.
If we were to initiate the age of Fair Trade it would fundamentally change the debate and ultimately alter the structure of the global economy. The world would face a choice. The European people would insist that their governments follow our lead. China and India would fight back but they are as dependent on us as we are on them. A bargain would be struck and a transition would be negotiated.
America would win back her industries and the middle class would re-emerge at the heart of the global economy.
It will happen in any case. It is inevitable. To continue on the path we are on will lead only to massive civil unrest and the result will be the same. By initiating Fair Trade now we could avoid much of that inevitable pain and disruption.
If only we had a leader with the courage to break his pact with Wall Street in order to keep his promise to the American people.
[Article posted by Pacific Free Press, CounterPunch and Dissident Voice.]
Jack Random is the author of Jazzman Chronicles (Crow Dog Press) and Ghost Dance Insurrection (Dry Bones Press.)
I completely agree with your thesis. There was a great poet by the name of Langston Hughes with whom Barack Obama would be well served to heed in his neglect of the rhetoric he used to obtain the office of the POTUS. In the final stanza of the poem, it reflects the inevitable outcome of the body politic. There will be an uprising at some point; an explosion!
Wakiza L. McQueen
HARLEM by Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
or fester like a sore—
and then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
December 14, 2011
A Line Obama Will Not Cross
Omission in Osawatomie
by JACK RANDOM
Like the sirens to Odysseus, President Obama’s address at Osawatomie, Kansas, was pleasing to the progressive ear but if you allow its seductive tone to capture you, it could well prove fatal to the cause.
We have heard this song before. It takes us back to the soaring oratory that uplifted the masses and propelled a one-term senator to the presidency. Then as now, the president correctly and brilliantly deconstructs the problem: The middle class is under siege, hemorrhaging skilled and unskilled jobs to cheap labor markets overseas, resulting in depressed wages and declining benefits, depleted retirement funds, union busting and unregulated industries.
But, then as now, his solutions fail to approach the heart of the matter. Proclaiming a new world economy based on innovation, he advocates government funding for research and education, science and engineering, progressive taxation, regulation, consumer protection and a commitment to building and rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure.
These are all worthy ideas that the president strings together with a rising intonation in order to avoid the obvious, central and core solution. Consequently, he builds to a dull crescendo, sounding a sour chord and all too familiar refrain: Technology and innovation will save us.
The president prides himself on his knowledge of history, so much so that he summoned the memory of Theodore Roosevelt in this address. Unfortunately, history does not uphold his case. Technology and innovation have never sustained the middle class. They have created fortunes and whole industries but how it affects the working people depends entirely on where the industries are located and how the workers are paid.
Take a good look at the major innovations of the Free Trade era: The personal computer, the laptop and the smart phone are all made in China and serviced in India. Solar technology created advanced solar collectors and panels, creating a thriving industry in China. Hybrid vehicles may be assembled in America but by-and-large they are constructed in foreign nations where the cost of labor trumps all other concerns. Even our bridges are made in China.
Within the parameters of a global Free Trade economy, there is no innovation that can revive American industry. The idea that innovation and education are going to create jobs for 300 million Americans is a pipe dream, a fantasy and, in this case, an excuse not to address the heart of the matter.
The obvious answer and the one that perpetually evades the president and the majority of his party is Fair Trade. American workers can compete and win on a fair playing field but no one can compete with dirt-cheap labor. The masterminds behind the new global economy have built corporate profits by exploiting the cheapest possible labor overseas and simultaneously undermining labor in our own country.
What is Fair Trade?
It is built on the conviction that all nations that engage our nation in trade should uphold the rights of labor, including the right to organize, and pay their workers living wages.
How would Fair Trade be implemented?
The most direct route would be to reserve preferred trade status to nations that protect the rights of labor, provide basic health and retirement benefits, and pay living wages to their workforce. All other nations would be subject to a tariff proportionate to the cost of compliance.
The message to China, India and all other nations that now benefit from the imbalance of trade would be clear: Pay your workers at home or pay to protect our workers at the border.
Human rights and the critical issue of carbon emissions also come into the equation but if the goal is rebuilding American industry, then the heart of the matter is labor.
Why is Fair Trade off the table?
There was a time when simply raising the cry of “Protectionism” could defeat any such proposal but after decades of job exportation, Americans are losing their fear of words. Protecting our workers in the current environment is a moral imperative.
Accordingly, Fair Trade is alive and well in the United States Congress. Even Republicans in the House and Senate are afraid to go on record in opposition. The Trade Reform Accountability Development and Employment Act proposed by Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Representative Michael Michaud of Maine would fundamentally reshape America’s trade policy, bringing labor to the forefront.
Unfortunately, the silence of the White House enables congressional leadership to keep the measure from coming to the floor for a vote. President Obama presses forward on Free Trade deals with Korea, Columbia and Panama, ensuring the exportation of jobs to even more nations.
Even progressive economists are reluctant to address trade policy, preferring to attack trade imbalance through so-called currency manipulation. The idea is if our trading partners increased the value of their currency it would be more expensive to buy their goods and less expensive for them to buy ours. If the revaluation were large enough and sustained, it would certainly have an effect.
The problem with the currency approach is that it allows the tenets of Free Trade to stand. It does not end the anti-labor measures enforced by austerity regimes under the dictates of the International Monetary Fund. That is why even the prototypical corporate candidate, Republican Mitt Romney, feels free to advocate punitive actions against China based on the charge of currency manipulation. It leaves workers out on the lurch and the rights of labor out of the picture. Moreover, all nations manipulate currency. That is the primary function of the Federal Reserve.
Of course, if we were to insist that other nations respect the rights of labor we would have to do a better job of protecting our own workers. We could no longer allow individual states to effectively crush unions with so-called Right to Work laws. We could no longer allow legislative attacks on collective bargaining without paying a price.
It is as if the entire liberal establishment, from the politicians to the intellectuals to the media, signed on to Bill Clinton’s Free Trade mandate back in the eighties and have adhered to that agreement ever since.
It was a deal with the devil, a betrayal of every working man and woman not only in America but throughout the world, and it demands to be revisited now.
In 2008 candidate Barack Obama said, “I voted against CAFTA, never supported NAFTA, and will not support NAFTA–style trade agreements in the future. While NAFTA gave broad rights to investors, it paid only lip service to the rights of labor and the importance of environmental protection.”
Where is that candidate now? He disappeared upon taking the oath of office.
In retrospect, it seems amply clear that candidate Obama made a deal with Wall Street, his leading campaign contributors, before he embarked on his road to the White House. Fair Trade was off limits. It was the one territory he could not visit. It was the one line he could not cross.
An original sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act (an affirmation of the right to organize and establish a union by majority vote) had President Obama remembered his labor roots in his address at Osawatomie, had he raised the banner of Fair Trade to initiate his campaign for a second term, then that address might have stood alongside Teddy Roosevelt’s New Nationalism or Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal inaugural address.
As it stands, it is the perfect symbol of his presidency to date: A promise unfulfilled.
If we were to initiate the age of Fair Trade it would fundamentally change the debate and ultimately alter the structure of the global economy. The world would face a choice. The European people would insist that their governments follow our lead. China and India would fight back but they are as dependent on us as we are on them. A bargain would be struck and a transition would be negotiated.
America would win back her industries and the middle class would re-emerge at the heart of the global economy.
It will happen in any case. It is inevitable. To continue on the path we are on will lead only to massive civil unrest and the result will be the same. By initiating Fair Trade now we could avoid much of that inevitable pain and disruption.
If only we had a leader with the courage to break his pact with Wall Street in order to keep his promise to the American people.
[Article posted by Pacific Free Press, CounterPunch and Dissident Voice.]
Jack Random is the author of Jazzman Chronicles (Crow Dog Press) and Ghost Dance Insurrection (Dry Bones Press.)
Monday, October 31, 2011
Occupy Wall Street Bloomington
[Editor's Note: This exchange happened after the appearance of an article on Counterpunch entitled "The Revolution Started without Me" by Jack Random. It offers a glimpse of what OWS is dealing with on the front lines of the streets of protest.]
Subject: Occupy Wall Street in Counterpunch
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 00:20:22 +0000
Hi Jazzman Jack Random,
I read your excellent article in Counterpunch and showed it to some people at People's Park here in Bloomington, Indiana, where we are occupying it in a spin-off of the Wall Street Occupation.
Someone asked, "is he joining us?" and I said I'd write you to ask.
Are you in this movement?
Cordially,
Dave Stewart
Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2011 9:56 PM
Subject: RE: Occupy Wall Street in Counterpunch
Dear Dave,
Thank you. I'm impressed that the movement has made it to Bloomington and that there's a People's Park there. The short answer to your question is: No, I am not. As you might have gathered, I'm an old timer. (To me, Dave Stewart is a great pitcher formerly of the Oakland A's.) My obligations and circumstance don't allow me to engage and occupy as the movement requires. I'm with you in spirit. I believe a cultural revolution is badly needed and that it is primarily a movement of the young.
I will offer you some points of unsolicited advice that I considered including in the piece but decided against. I would emphasize the fifth point.
ADVICE FOR THE CAUSE:
1. Learn to police yourself. To the extent you are viable, you will be attacked. Those who oppose you will hire thugs to infiltrate, to pose as allies, to win trust only to cause trouble and trigger retaliation and backlash. Do not let the movement be hijacked by traitors.
2. Remain peaceful. Your enemies want you to be disorderly and violent. They want a reason to suppress you with force. Give them no reason. When they move on you, as they surely will, retreat and wait. When they abandon territory you wish to occupy, move back in. When the police attack, film it from a thousand angles and points of view. Let there be no doubt as to the nature and intent of police brutality.
3. Focus on the major cities with an established activist community. Use the universities as centers of organization and communication. Occupy the parks. Remind the nation that Hoovervilles sprung up in parks across the land during the first Great Depression. Feed the people and provide for the homeless.
4. Remain open and tolerant. Don not allow the cause to be taken over by those who would exclude others on the basis of ideology. Be engaged in political discourse but do not become political.
5. Invent your own rules and don't listen to old timers like me.
Peace,
Ray Miller, aka Jack Random
P.S. It's too bad Howard Zinn is no longer with us. That's one old timer I'm certain would be with you and fully engaged. For myself, I'll find my own ways to lend support as we move along.
Subject: RE: Occupy Wall Street in Counterpunch
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 13:09:38 +0000
Dear Jack,
I watched Dave Stewart pitch (on T.V.).
I am 56. I have a good job and am secure financially, etc.
I have slept 'there' theese past nights, as well as hanging out and enjoy talking to all.....people seem to enjoy talking to me. I listen a lot. I don't give advice about "the olden days" (how could I?). It is heartbreaking to hear their stories about how they've tried to do everyting they've been told and yet it has not worked and now they are in a lot of debt and cannot see a way out of it.
I'll take your points to the next meeting (today).
I am certain you will help others (not only me).
When I woke up today, I thought that this was just like a "Hooverville". We ARE encouraging the homeless to join us (they are doing so), and are feeding them. Actually, so far there has been food for all.
IF that is all that this is (we had this conversation last night)...well, that's something. However, we are all trying to 'communicate'...first with each other and then convey that to others. What is going to be interesting is whether all (meaning the homeless) are going to join in our meetings and whether all are going to join the 'community' (while retaining their individuality). In point # 1 you mention 'traitors' and I am glad you did so... In the movie "Battle of Algiers" it can be seen that one of the first steps is to get everyone to 'clean up their act' (no alcohol drunkenness, no prostitution) and that conversation is going to take place today.
I hope that's not too much information.
Believe me, I do more listening than talking. However, when people ask me about stuff I tell them a little and when they ask "how did you learn about that?" I recommend that they read Counterpunch.
I have always enjoyed your postings and hope to read more in the future.
All the best,
Dave
Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2011 1:48 AM
Subject: RE: Occupy Wall Street in Counterpunch
I'm very much impressed. Can I post your words?
I have a notion to share with you: a lot of politicians are expressing sympathy. Ask the local council to lift the curfew on the parks. Ask them to sanction the cause. If you get anywhere, spread the word. It might start something.
My best to you and the cause.
Peace, Random
Subject: RE: Occupy Wall Street in Counterpunch
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2011 14:41:35 +0000
Dear Jack,
Sure, you can post my words. Though I 'just' wrote it to you, perhaps someone will enjoy reading it and perhaps (the goal) check out www.counterpunch.org
It is my opinion that this nascent 'movement' has the potential to lose its way or get co-opted by the Democrats.
For example, in the 'outreach meeting' I proposed that not only should 'we' attempt to spread the word to others who have not attended yet, but to outreach WITHIN OURSELVES....meet others we have not met, and while meeting others discuss whatever issues.
To me, the biggest issue is that "we" are protesting events as they stand now. We are NOT bitching about Clinton (NAFTA/Glass-Steagall, to mention only a couple), Bush I or II, we are protesting what is going on NOW.
Therefore, we're not 'hoping for change' in 11/12, nor is the current President helping us (otherwise, we would not be in the situation we are now).
And than, (and it might be prissy), there is the important issue of cleanliness (picking up litter, keeping our bodies clean) and not using the drugs (alcohol, tobacco) which are used to keep us unable to think beyond the present.
These thoughts met with a lot of resistance.
It is my belief that the powers that be are more than willing to allow us to implode, fracture, and then 'admit' that the present power structure is the best.
To ask for a permit is to admit that we are acting under their authority, so I most respectfully will not make that suggestion, but I'll mention it to others.
We have already had a heated discussion about accepting money. Many were vociferous of refusing money IF the Dems offered it to us, but all were willing to accept from local businesses and people. So far, the Dems have been defeated, but daily representatives drop by, as are the Christian kooks wanting to 'pray for us' and last night they set up a hot dog stand, which, of course, is pork and simply awful nutrition.
But I cannot tell those who are hungry not to eat.
Jack, I am totally honored you wrote me back. As I wrote earlier, I have always completely enjoyed your Counterpunch postings.
All the best,
Dave
Bloomington, IN.
Sent: Friday, October 14, 2011 12:09 AM
Subject: RE: Occupy Wall Street in Counterpunch
Dear Dave:
It is a delicate balance between inclusion and control. I certainly understand the alcohol ban. It introduces behavioral consequences best avoided. The exclusion of tobacco is a bit trickier. Marijuana introduces a whole new set of issues you may wish to avoid or not.
My suggestion for gaining a waiver on curfew in the parks was intended to either abandon pseudo support or if granted to avoid a conflict with the police. Once again, a delicate balance. You're right not to seek permission.
The issues you're confronting are not easy. The trash issue has become important as it is currently being used in New York and elsewhere as an excuse to clear out the protesters. The money issue is also complex but I support your position.
Time permitting, I appreciate the information and will offer any ideas that may occur to me.
It is a great endeavor you're undertaking. Keep the faith.
Peace, Random
Sent: Friday, October 14, 2011
Subject: RE: Occupy Wall Street in Counterpunch
Dear Jack,
I am so honored you have written me several times, and truly have appreciated your thoughts and suggestions.
You have been very helpful in many ways, and, time permitting, if you happen to have other thoughts I would be happy to hear from you.
I will, as I have in the past, relay your thoughts to others.
Thank you very much for the encouragement!!
And, I look forward to future postings of yours in Counterpunch, whether on this topic or any other.
All the best,
Dave
Subject: Occupy Wall Street in Counterpunch
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 00:20:22 +0000
Hi Jazzman Jack Random,
I read your excellent article in Counterpunch and showed it to some people at People's Park here in Bloomington, Indiana, where we are occupying it in a spin-off of the Wall Street Occupation.
Someone asked, "is he joining us?" and I said I'd write you to ask.
Are you in this movement?
Cordially,
Dave Stewart
Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2011 9:56 PM
Subject: RE: Occupy Wall Street in Counterpunch
Dear Dave,
Thank you. I'm impressed that the movement has made it to Bloomington and that there's a People's Park there. The short answer to your question is: No, I am not. As you might have gathered, I'm an old timer. (To me, Dave Stewart is a great pitcher formerly of the Oakland A's.) My obligations and circumstance don't allow me to engage and occupy as the movement requires. I'm with you in spirit. I believe a cultural revolution is badly needed and that it is primarily a movement of the young.
I will offer you some points of unsolicited advice that I considered including in the piece but decided against. I would emphasize the fifth point.
ADVICE FOR THE CAUSE:
1. Learn to police yourself. To the extent you are viable, you will be attacked. Those who oppose you will hire thugs to infiltrate, to pose as allies, to win trust only to cause trouble and trigger retaliation and backlash. Do not let the movement be hijacked by traitors.
2. Remain peaceful. Your enemies want you to be disorderly and violent. They want a reason to suppress you with force. Give them no reason. When they move on you, as they surely will, retreat and wait. When they abandon territory you wish to occupy, move back in. When the police attack, film it from a thousand angles and points of view. Let there be no doubt as to the nature and intent of police brutality.
3. Focus on the major cities with an established activist community. Use the universities as centers of organization and communication. Occupy the parks. Remind the nation that Hoovervilles sprung up in parks across the land during the first Great Depression. Feed the people and provide for the homeless.
4. Remain open and tolerant. Don not allow the cause to be taken over by those who would exclude others on the basis of ideology. Be engaged in political discourse but do not become political.
5. Invent your own rules and don't listen to old timers like me.
Peace,
Ray Miller, aka Jack Random
P.S. It's too bad Howard Zinn is no longer with us. That's one old timer I'm certain would be with you and fully engaged. For myself, I'll find my own ways to lend support as we move along.
Subject: RE: Occupy Wall Street in Counterpunch
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 13:09:38 +0000
Dear Jack,
I watched Dave Stewart pitch (on T.V.).
I am 56. I have a good job and am secure financially, etc.
I have slept 'there' theese past nights, as well as hanging out and enjoy talking to all.....people seem to enjoy talking to me. I listen a lot. I don't give advice about "the olden days" (how could I?). It is heartbreaking to hear their stories about how they've tried to do everyting they've been told and yet it has not worked and now they are in a lot of debt and cannot see a way out of it.
I'll take your points to the next meeting (today).
I am certain you will help others (not only me).
When I woke up today, I thought that this was just like a "Hooverville". We ARE encouraging the homeless to join us (they are doing so), and are feeding them. Actually, so far there has been food for all.
IF that is all that this is (we had this conversation last night)...well, that's something. However, we are all trying to 'communicate'...first with each other and then convey that to others. What is going to be interesting is whether all (meaning the homeless) are going to join in our meetings and whether all are going to join the 'community' (while retaining their individuality). In point # 1 you mention 'traitors' and I am glad you did so... In the movie "Battle of Algiers" it can be seen that one of the first steps is to get everyone to 'clean up their act' (no alcohol drunkenness, no prostitution) and that conversation is going to take place today.
I hope that's not too much information.
Believe me, I do more listening than talking. However, when people ask me about stuff I tell them a little and when they ask "how did you learn about that?" I recommend that they read Counterpunch.
I have always enjoyed your postings and hope to read more in the future.
All the best,
Dave
Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2011 1:48 AM
Subject: RE: Occupy Wall Street in Counterpunch
I'm very much impressed. Can I post your words?
I have a notion to share with you: a lot of politicians are expressing sympathy. Ask the local council to lift the curfew on the parks. Ask them to sanction the cause. If you get anywhere, spread the word. It might start something.
My best to you and the cause.
Peace, Random
Subject: RE: Occupy Wall Street in Counterpunch
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2011 14:41:35 +0000
Dear Jack,
Sure, you can post my words. Though I 'just' wrote it to you, perhaps someone will enjoy reading it and perhaps (the goal) check out www.counterpunch.org
It is my opinion that this nascent 'movement' has the potential to lose its way or get co-opted by the Democrats.
For example, in the 'outreach meeting' I proposed that not only should 'we' attempt to spread the word to others who have not attended yet, but to outreach WITHIN OURSELVES....meet others we have not met, and while meeting others discuss whatever issues.
To me, the biggest issue is that "we" are protesting events as they stand now. We are NOT bitching about Clinton (NAFTA/Glass-Steagall, to mention only a couple), Bush I or II, we are protesting what is going on NOW.
Therefore, we're not 'hoping for change' in 11/12, nor is the current President helping us (otherwise, we would not be in the situation we are now).
And than, (and it might be prissy), there is the important issue of cleanliness (picking up litter, keeping our bodies clean) and not using the drugs (alcohol, tobacco) which are used to keep us unable to think beyond the present.
These thoughts met with a lot of resistance.
It is my belief that the powers that be are more than willing to allow us to implode, fracture, and then 'admit' that the present power structure is the best.
To ask for a permit is to admit that we are acting under their authority, so I most respectfully will not make that suggestion, but I'll mention it to others.
We have already had a heated discussion about accepting money. Many were vociferous of refusing money IF the Dems offered it to us, but all were willing to accept from local businesses and people. So far, the Dems have been defeated, but daily representatives drop by, as are the Christian kooks wanting to 'pray for us' and last night they set up a hot dog stand, which, of course, is pork and simply awful nutrition.
But I cannot tell those who are hungry not to eat.
Jack, I am totally honored you wrote me back. As I wrote earlier, I have always completely enjoyed your Counterpunch postings.
All the best,
Dave
Bloomington, IN.
Sent: Friday, October 14, 2011 12:09 AM
Subject: RE: Occupy Wall Street in Counterpunch
Dear Dave:
It is a delicate balance between inclusion and control. I certainly understand the alcohol ban. It introduces behavioral consequences best avoided. The exclusion of tobacco is a bit trickier. Marijuana introduces a whole new set of issues you may wish to avoid or not.
My suggestion for gaining a waiver on curfew in the parks was intended to either abandon pseudo support or if granted to avoid a conflict with the police. Once again, a delicate balance. You're right not to seek permission.
The issues you're confronting are not easy. The trash issue has become important as it is currently being used in New York and elsewhere as an excuse to clear out the protesters. The money issue is also complex but I support your position.
Time permitting, I appreciate the information and will offer any ideas that may occur to me.
It is a great endeavor you're undertaking. Keep the faith.
Peace, Random
Sent: Friday, October 14, 2011
Subject: RE: Occupy Wall Street in Counterpunch
Dear Jack,
I am so honored you have written me several times, and truly have appreciated your thoughts and suggestions.
You have been very helpful in many ways, and, time permitting, if you happen to have other thoughts I would be happy to hear from you.
I will, as I have in the past, relay your thoughts to others.
Thank you very much for the encouragement!!
And, I look forward to future postings of yours in Counterpunch, whether on this topic or any other.
All the best,
Dave
Saturday, September 24, 2011
THE REPUBLICAN FIELD: OPPORTUNISTS, PANDERERS AND PRETENDERS
A JAZZMAN CHRONICLE by Jack Random. DISSEMINATE FREELY.
In the two-party system of American politics, citizens are ultimately forced to choose between two candidates selected by their respective parties, though neither may represent their interests or points of view.
This goes out to all those voting members of society who consider themselves Republicans or right-leaning independents who hold sway over the shape of government to come: I know that for a variety of reasons from the economy to his legislative record to the swagger in his step to blatant or latent racism, many of you despise Barack Obama.
You despise him at such a visceral level you cannot imagine pulling the lever that awards him a second term under any circumstances. But as you look at the field of Republican candidates, can you honestly imagine electing any of them president?
The current field of nine candidates can be broken down into three tiers.
Third tier candidates are purely symbolic. Some may have an issue or a philosophy to promote. Some are simply clinging to political relevance and wish to hang on to the public spotlight as long as possible. Some may actually believe they have a chance to catch lightning in a bottle when the whole world outside the family circle knows they do not.
Leading the third tier is the pizza man, Herman Cain, who was invited to the party to serve as the token member of a racial minority. The Grand Old Party was in need of a new face after Michael Steele was pushed out as Chairman of the national committee. Where Steele was entirely too reasonable on any number of issues, Cain adheres to the rightwing policy agenda without exception. Could anyone really imagine the Republican Party nominating an angry black man to face Obama? We like his triple-nine game plan (reminds us of the Beatles’ White Album) but his time is about to expire. Don’t forget the pepperoni!
Newt Gingrich is the old-timer of the third tier candidates. Newt has not had a new idea since the 1980’s but he does have a new book to sell. The idea that Gingrich is an intellectual is pure mythology. He’s a fast talking peddler of used goods who lost his sales base to Wal-Mart in 1994 but never lost his pitch. He’s Willy Loman, the tragic father in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, with a hard-dying dream of Alaska and better days. He’s an old man with a young wife and a lifestyle he can no longer afford.
Newt’s only hope is that someone will take him on as a vice presidential mate due to the paucity of viable options. Slim hope indeed.
Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum must be baffled. His party has moved to his Christian fundamentalist, far right positions on every issue from immigration to abortion rights to equal rights for homosexuals yet no one seems to like him. Maybe it’s his support of animal rights or former Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter or maybe it’s that Dan Quayle look in his eyes as if nothing is going on in there beyond a rehearsal of his next line. His function in this campaign is to challenge the frontrunners for any lapses on rightwing policy – notably immigration.
Texas Congressman Ron Paul once again joins the Republican field to become the face of libertarianism. On that level, his is a noble cause. The trouble is: He is too often politically tone deaf and his particular brand of libertarianism is far too compromised. Granted, a pure libertarian would rightly be accused of anarchism. Still, no libertarian should ever wish to impose his morality on others, as Paul would do on abortion and gay marriage, and no libertarian should ever be allowed to fall back on states’ rights as the congressman so often does. In this round of Republican debates, “states’ rights” has become a means of avoiding hard issues and inconsistencies. Mitt Romney should not be allowed to do so with mandated health insurance and Paul should know better. It’s a pandering position and weakens his portrait as a courageous leader.
The congressman deserves credit for making his antiwar, anti-empire policies acceptable to his party. His truth telling on the tenth anniversary of September 11, however admirable, would have sealed his fate had it not already been ordained.
Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson made a surprise appearance in the recent Florida debate, staking his claim to the libertarian banner. He supports replacing the current multilevel tax system with a consumption tax, an idea with considerable merit. His presence could push Paul to live up to the libertarian creed.
The question for the third tier candidates is: How long can they last? The money is drying up and hope is fading fast.
To a large extent, the same is true of the two members of the second tier, Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle Bachman and former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman. Both began this campaign with a base of financial and political support. Both find their prospects diminished for distinctly different reasons.
As the only woman in the field, it is impossible to see Bachman as anything but a stand-in for Tea Party favorite Sarah Palin. Bachman was catapulted to fame by an odd exchange with MSNBC host Chris Mathews, in which she advocated an investigation into the un-American attitudes and activities of fellow members of congress. Mathews quickly painted her into a corner. It was as if she had never heard of Senator Joseph McCarthy, the House Un-American Activities Committee, and the infamous witch-hunt of the 1950’s. Paradoxically, the exchange gave her status and a loyal constituency in the far right. She became a leading fundraiser and when the Tea Party came along she was first on board.
Despite her frequent gaffs, her presidential campaign was gaining traction until Governor Rick Perry entered the contest and promptly stole her thunder. Bachman’s slender thread of hope now is that the Tea Party will tire of their new hero or that the Texas Governor will shoot himself in the foot.
Jon Huntsman entered the race hoping that at some point Republicans might decide they want to win the general election. He was poised as an alternative to fellow Mormon Mitt Romney whom nobody loves and the Tea Party hates. Minnesota’s Tim Pawlenty had the same idea but he had no stomach for hardball politics. Huntsman is still standing but with each passing debate it is becoming clear that he has no place in today’s Republican Party. He is not strong enough, angry enough or ideologically pure enough. Unless party dynamics change he will drop out before the primaries begin.
In all probability, the Republican standard bearer for 2012 will be decided between the two top tier candidates: Mitt Romney and Rick Perry.
There are two ways of looking at the Governor of Texas and both have validity. One is that he is George W. Bush only taller. The other is that he is Mitt Romney with a drawl.
Like Romney, Governor Perry has had to reinvent himself. It is hard to imagine that this Texas tough guy, proud of his state’s record of putting hundreds to death during his tenure, and stubborn as a Laredo mule, once was a Dixie Democrat who had no reservations in supporting the candidacy of Albert Gore against his predecessor in the Governor’s Mansion.
Did Perry have a revelation? Did a partisan God come down from the mountain to transform the Democratic state representative who voted for a $5.7 billion dollar tax increase into a staunch anti-tax, anti-government Republican? Or was it pure political opportunism?
The governor pivoted quickly enough from a Social Security Ponzi scheme to Social Security reform. He squirmed and stammered in Florida where his stance is electoral suicide. It was Florida and the Jewish vote he had in mind when he issued his decree on the Palestinian question. With an analysis that would fail to penetrate the skin of a teenaged girl, Perry declared that he favors Israel no matter what the Israelis or the Palestinians do or say. The Neocons have found a home with Perry the Panderer and who knows but that he just might win. Stranger things have happened.
Perry presaged his presidential candidacy with a Christian fundamentalist extravaganza and some media planted stories about the Texas economic miracle. Reporter Rich Wartzman of the LA Times made the Governor’s case with this pointed proposition:
“If you care about putting people back to work when nearly 14 million are unemployed, maybe Texas has something to teach us.”
With the latest census data on poverty in America, the counterpoint is clear:
If you care about putting food on the table and a roof over your head at a time when nearly 50 million Americans are living below the poverty line, maybe New Hampshire has something to teach us. Certainly not Texas.
With an economy bolstered by what Mitt Romney termed four aces (no income tax, anti-labor laws, a Republican legislature and oil), Texas ranked 49th of the fifty states in the number of its citizens living below the poverty line. If you think that’s unfair because it doesn’t account for the number of people living in the state, you’re right. It’s unfair to California. On a per capita basis, Texas ranked 46th, ahead of Alabama, New Mexico, Louisiana and Mississippi.
That is what the Texas economic model is all about. Perry brags about the number of jobs he’s created but he never mentions that those jobs were insufficient to lift Texans out of poverty. If you’re a typical Texan, you work at a minimum wage job or worse, you have no health or retirement benefits, and you’re struggling to survive.
Nevertheless, both Perry and Romney have made it clear that they believe Texas is the pride of the nation and they want to bring the Texas model to the rest of us. If you live in Alabama, New Mexico, Louisiana or Mississippi, that might be good news. If you live in the other 45 states (other than Texas), it does not bode well.
America’s most famous Mormon since Joseph Smith, Mitt Romney was governor of liberal Massachusetts for a brief four years. During his tenure, he supported and opposed civil unions for same sex couples, supported and opposed abortion rights, supported and opposed stem cell research, and of course sponsored the most comprehensive government sponsored health care program in the nation. As a presidential aspirant, Romney found new love for the National Rifle Association and signed the anti-tax pledge.
Romney has an explanation for every change of policy but the more the people listen to him the more they realize there is nothing there. He believes whatever the polls tell him to believe. He wants to be president and everything he says and does is owing to that ambition.
As a businessman, Romney was responsible for eliminating more jobs than he ever created. As co-founder of Bain Capital, he specialized in leveraged buyouts, buying companies and enforcing layoffs to boost the bottom line. Romney made a fortune on the misfortune of workers and always gave a liberal tithing to the Church of the Latter Day Saints. He is just what the corporate doctor ordered: His expertise is austerity, by which he means austerity for us and prosperity for the elite.
Now Romney wants to lead the nation. He speaks with great admiration for the Texas economic model of mass poverty, cheap workers, corporate free reign, anti-labor laws and bountiful oil.
He is in fact the last person on the planet that should be president at this time – unless of course that honor goes to Governor Rick Perry.
I am by no means enthralled with the prospect of a second Obama term but given an alternative from this field of opportunists, panderers and pretenders, there is no choice at all.
Is it too late for a third option? Maybe. Maybe not. The electorate is yearning for someone to stand up to China and India. The people would line up from Bakersfield to Bangor, Maine, from Tampa to Tacoma, to support a viable candidate who offered a simple pledge: Bring the jobs back home!
The opportunity for a true labor candidate is so clear and powerful I would not be surprised if we didn’t soon find the slogan plastered on Mitt Romney pamphlets and bumper stickers with a claim of copyright.
Of course, in his hands it would be an outright lie.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS, GLOBAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.
In the two-party system of American politics, citizens are ultimately forced to choose between two candidates selected by their respective parties, though neither may represent their interests or points of view.
This goes out to all those voting members of society who consider themselves Republicans or right-leaning independents who hold sway over the shape of government to come: I know that for a variety of reasons from the economy to his legislative record to the swagger in his step to blatant or latent racism, many of you despise Barack Obama.
You despise him at such a visceral level you cannot imagine pulling the lever that awards him a second term under any circumstances. But as you look at the field of Republican candidates, can you honestly imagine electing any of them president?
The current field of nine candidates can be broken down into three tiers.
Third tier candidates are purely symbolic. Some may have an issue or a philosophy to promote. Some are simply clinging to political relevance and wish to hang on to the public spotlight as long as possible. Some may actually believe they have a chance to catch lightning in a bottle when the whole world outside the family circle knows they do not.
Leading the third tier is the pizza man, Herman Cain, who was invited to the party to serve as the token member of a racial minority. The Grand Old Party was in need of a new face after Michael Steele was pushed out as Chairman of the national committee. Where Steele was entirely too reasonable on any number of issues, Cain adheres to the rightwing policy agenda without exception. Could anyone really imagine the Republican Party nominating an angry black man to face Obama? We like his triple-nine game plan (reminds us of the Beatles’ White Album) but his time is about to expire. Don’t forget the pepperoni!
Newt Gingrich is the old-timer of the third tier candidates. Newt has not had a new idea since the 1980’s but he does have a new book to sell. The idea that Gingrich is an intellectual is pure mythology. He’s a fast talking peddler of used goods who lost his sales base to Wal-Mart in 1994 but never lost his pitch. He’s Willy Loman, the tragic father in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, with a hard-dying dream of Alaska and better days. He’s an old man with a young wife and a lifestyle he can no longer afford.
Newt’s only hope is that someone will take him on as a vice presidential mate due to the paucity of viable options. Slim hope indeed.
Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum must be baffled. His party has moved to his Christian fundamentalist, far right positions on every issue from immigration to abortion rights to equal rights for homosexuals yet no one seems to like him. Maybe it’s his support of animal rights or former Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter or maybe it’s that Dan Quayle look in his eyes as if nothing is going on in there beyond a rehearsal of his next line. His function in this campaign is to challenge the frontrunners for any lapses on rightwing policy – notably immigration.
Texas Congressman Ron Paul once again joins the Republican field to become the face of libertarianism. On that level, his is a noble cause. The trouble is: He is too often politically tone deaf and his particular brand of libertarianism is far too compromised. Granted, a pure libertarian would rightly be accused of anarchism. Still, no libertarian should ever wish to impose his morality on others, as Paul would do on abortion and gay marriage, and no libertarian should ever be allowed to fall back on states’ rights as the congressman so often does. In this round of Republican debates, “states’ rights” has become a means of avoiding hard issues and inconsistencies. Mitt Romney should not be allowed to do so with mandated health insurance and Paul should know better. It’s a pandering position and weakens his portrait as a courageous leader.
The congressman deserves credit for making his antiwar, anti-empire policies acceptable to his party. His truth telling on the tenth anniversary of September 11, however admirable, would have sealed his fate had it not already been ordained.
Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson made a surprise appearance in the recent Florida debate, staking his claim to the libertarian banner. He supports replacing the current multilevel tax system with a consumption tax, an idea with considerable merit. His presence could push Paul to live up to the libertarian creed.
The question for the third tier candidates is: How long can they last? The money is drying up and hope is fading fast.
To a large extent, the same is true of the two members of the second tier, Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle Bachman and former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman. Both began this campaign with a base of financial and political support. Both find their prospects diminished for distinctly different reasons.
As the only woman in the field, it is impossible to see Bachman as anything but a stand-in for Tea Party favorite Sarah Palin. Bachman was catapulted to fame by an odd exchange with MSNBC host Chris Mathews, in which she advocated an investigation into the un-American attitudes and activities of fellow members of congress. Mathews quickly painted her into a corner. It was as if she had never heard of Senator Joseph McCarthy, the House Un-American Activities Committee, and the infamous witch-hunt of the 1950’s. Paradoxically, the exchange gave her status and a loyal constituency in the far right. She became a leading fundraiser and when the Tea Party came along she was first on board.
Despite her frequent gaffs, her presidential campaign was gaining traction until Governor Rick Perry entered the contest and promptly stole her thunder. Bachman’s slender thread of hope now is that the Tea Party will tire of their new hero or that the Texas Governor will shoot himself in the foot.
Jon Huntsman entered the race hoping that at some point Republicans might decide they want to win the general election. He was poised as an alternative to fellow Mormon Mitt Romney whom nobody loves and the Tea Party hates. Minnesota’s Tim Pawlenty had the same idea but he had no stomach for hardball politics. Huntsman is still standing but with each passing debate it is becoming clear that he has no place in today’s Republican Party. He is not strong enough, angry enough or ideologically pure enough. Unless party dynamics change he will drop out before the primaries begin.
In all probability, the Republican standard bearer for 2012 will be decided between the two top tier candidates: Mitt Romney and Rick Perry.
There are two ways of looking at the Governor of Texas and both have validity. One is that he is George W. Bush only taller. The other is that he is Mitt Romney with a drawl.
Like Romney, Governor Perry has had to reinvent himself. It is hard to imagine that this Texas tough guy, proud of his state’s record of putting hundreds to death during his tenure, and stubborn as a Laredo mule, once was a Dixie Democrat who had no reservations in supporting the candidacy of Albert Gore against his predecessor in the Governor’s Mansion.
Did Perry have a revelation? Did a partisan God come down from the mountain to transform the Democratic state representative who voted for a $5.7 billion dollar tax increase into a staunch anti-tax, anti-government Republican? Or was it pure political opportunism?
The governor pivoted quickly enough from a Social Security Ponzi scheme to Social Security reform. He squirmed and stammered in Florida where his stance is electoral suicide. It was Florida and the Jewish vote he had in mind when he issued his decree on the Palestinian question. With an analysis that would fail to penetrate the skin of a teenaged girl, Perry declared that he favors Israel no matter what the Israelis or the Palestinians do or say. The Neocons have found a home with Perry the Panderer and who knows but that he just might win. Stranger things have happened.
Perry presaged his presidential candidacy with a Christian fundamentalist extravaganza and some media planted stories about the Texas economic miracle. Reporter Rich Wartzman of the LA Times made the Governor’s case with this pointed proposition:
“If you care about putting people back to work when nearly 14 million are unemployed, maybe Texas has something to teach us.”
With the latest census data on poverty in America, the counterpoint is clear:
If you care about putting food on the table and a roof over your head at a time when nearly 50 million Americans are living below the poverty line, maybe New Hampshire has something to teach us. Certainly not Texas.
With an economy bolstered by what Mitt Romney termed four aces (no income tax, anti-labor laws, a Republican legislature and oil), Texas ranked 49th of the fifty states in the number of its citizens living below the poverty line. If you think that’s unfair because it doesn’t account for the number of people living in the state, you’re right. It’s unfair to California. On a per capita basis, Texas ranked 46th, ahead of Alabama, New Mexico, Louisiana and Mississippi.
That is what the Texas economic model is all about. Perry brags about the number of jobs he’s created but he never mentions that those jobs were insufficient to lift Texans out of poverty. If you’re a typical Texan, you work at a minimum wage job or worse, you have no health or retirement benefits, and you’re struggling to survive.
Nevertheless, both Perry and Romney have made it clear that they believe Texas is the pride of the nation and they want to bring the Texas model to the rest of us. If you live in Alabama, New Mexico, Louisiana or Mississippi, that might be good news. If you live in the other 45 states (other than Texas), it does not bode well.
America’s most famous Mormon since Joseph Smith, Mitt Romney was governor of liberal Massachusetts for a brief four years. During his tenure, he supported and opposed civil unions for same sex couples, supported and opposed abortion rights, supported and opposed stem cell research, and of course sponsored the most comprehensive government sponsored health care program in the nation. As a presidential aspirant, Romney found new love for the National Rifle Association and signed the anti-tax pledge.
Romney has an explanation for every change of policy but the more the people listen to him the more they realize there is nothing there. He believes whatever the polls tell him to believe. He wants to be president and everything he says and does is owing to that ambition.
As a businessman, Romney was responsible for eliminating more jobs than he ever created. As co-founder of Bain Capital, he specialized in leveraged buyouts, buying companies and enforcing layoffs to boost the bottom line. Romney made a fortune on the misfortune of workers and always gave a liberal tithing to the Church of the Latter Day Saints. He is just what the corporate doctor ordered: His expertise is austerity, by which he means austerity for us and prosperity for the elite.
Now Romney wants to lead the nation. He speaks with great admiration for the Texas economic model of mass poverty, cheap workers, corporate free reign, anti-labor laws and bountiful oil.
He is in fact the last person on the planet that should be president at this time – unless of course that honor goes to Governor Rick Perry.
I am by no means enthralled with the prospect of a second Obama term but given an alternative from this field of opportunists, panderers and pretenders, there is no choice at all.
Is it too late for a third option? Maybe. Maybe not. The electorate is yearning for someone to stand up to China and India. The people would line up from Bakersfield to Bangor, Maine, from Tampa to Tacoma, to support a viable candidate who offered a simple pledge: Bring the jobs back home!
The opportunity for a true labor candidate is so clear and powerful I would not be surprised if we didn’t soon find the slogan plastered on Mitt Romney pamphlets and bumper stickers with a claim of copyright.
Of course, in his hands it would be an outright lie.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS, GLOBAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
DEBT CEILING MADNESS
From PUBLIC CITIZEN, Robert Weissman, President.
Washington is in the grip of a fever. It’s hard to find a word other than lunacy to describe what’s going on. We are veering toward potential economic catastrophe. And Congress is hung up on a debate that shouldn’t be occurring. It is debating an imaginary problem that conjures scary future scenarios but ignores dire existing circumstances. The consensus proffered solution to the imaginary problem would damage our country and further weaken our economy.
Democrats and Republicans are at loggerheads, but they are disagreeing primarily about how much harm they want to impose. That’s a very consequential disagreement, but it ignores the fact that we don’t need to impose any harm at all.
Let’s correct some of the upside-down components of the current debate.
1. There should not be a debate over increasing the nation’s debt ceiling.
Prior approval of increases — more than 100 — have been routine, and this time should be no different. Raising the debt ceiling merely authorizes the U.S. government to make good on spending previously authorized by Congress.
It is true that Republicans in Congress signaled some time ago that they would not easily agree to another increase in the debt ceiling. That’s why Democrats should have passed an increase in the last Congress, a move they declined to make because of fear of electoral consequences. At very least, the administration should have insisted on increasing the debt ceiling as a condition of agreeing to the December 2010 deal to extend the Bush tax cuts.
2. The government should be running larger, not smaller, deficits.
The country has not recovered from the Great Recession. One in six people who would like a full-time job are unable to find one. We don’t have to worry about hard times coming sometime in the future — we are living in hard times right now!
To fuel a stalled economy and put people back to work, the U.S. government should be spending more money. This is basic Keynesian economics. It shouldn’t be controversial. State governments are starved for cash, and laying off thousands of teachers, librarians, fire fighters and police. If the federal government gave the states block grants, they could keep people employed, and keep delivering needed services. Our country, and our economy, would be stronger.
Much of the country is suffering through a summer of staggering heat waves. This should be an urgent reminder of the need to take radical action to mitigate catastrophic climate change. Especially with so many people out of work, the government should be spending money to employ people to retrofit buildings around the country and to invest in R&D on solar and wind energy.
And, of course, there is no shortage of other pressing needs to which people can be put to work. By contrast, cutting spending right now will worsen our very severe economic crisis, and push more people out of work.
3. Our economic problems are present, not future.
It is both bewildering and unconscionable that pontificating politicians and pundits express so much concern for imagined future economic problems while ignoring the real and present suffering that pervades the country. There is also some very fuzzy math that takes over the discussion. If it continues to grow economically, and if it makes wise investments, the country is going to be significantly richer in the years and decades ahead. We’re not going to be poorer, irrespective of the size of the national debt.
4. It’s actually not very hard to find a few trillion dollars.
To say that the debt ceiling debate shouldn’t be taking place, and that we should be running larger deficits, is not to say there aren’t appropriate areas of the budget to cut, and appropriate revenue streams to tap.
On the spending side, among many other things, we could:
• Save more than a trillion dollars over 10 years by ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• Cut more than $500 billion from the Department of Defense budget by replacing private contractors and eliminating weapons systems the Pentagon says it does not need. Hundreds of billions of more in savings are available through modest cuts at DoD. The United States would still have, by far, the world’s largest military. A very modest proposal from the Congressional Progressive Caucus totals $2.3 trillion in savings over 10 years through ending the wars and cutting the Defense budget.
• Save more than $150 billion in pharmaceutical costs just by negotiating better prices with Big Pharma. More aggressive moves to fix the broken pharmaceutical development system could offer savings far larger, with the government obtaining a significant portion of well over a trillion dollars in savings on pharmaceutical expenditures over 10 years.
On the revenue side, among many other things, we could:
• Tax Wall Street speculation and raise between $1 trillion and $1.5 trillion over 10 years.
• End offshore tax haven abuses, and raise a trillion dollars over the next decade.
• Close corporate tax loopholes. By way of illustration, getting rid of just two large breaks, deferral of overseas revenue and accelerated depreciation, would raise about $700 billion. The Treasury Department lists $365 billion in corporate tax breaks being gifted annually — that’s $3.65 trillion over the 10-year period talked about in these debt debates! Thanks to all the loopholes and escapes, corporations are benefiting from record low tax rates — 21% on average (this is what they are actually paying, not the nominal rate). For a handful, the tax system is a source of revenue. Citizens for Tax Justice looked at 12 major companies that together made $171 billion in profits from 2008-2010 and found that the dozen companies together paid negative $2.5 billion in taxes, thanks to $62 billion in tax subsidies.
• Tax capital gains as ordinary income, and raise $1 trillion.
Many of these and other sensible budget ideas are included in the Congressional Progressive Caucus’s People’s Budget. A key thing to keep in mind about all these savings and increased revenue is that they should be ploughed back into public investments and public priorities. We need more net spending, not less. Over time, we need to reduce the deficit, but much of that will occur automatically, as the country moves back to fuller employment and more robust growth.
We do not need to touch, nor should we touch, Medicare or Medicaid. Nor should we tamper with Social Security, which is financed separately from the rest of the federal budget and has nothing to do with the debt. It’s impossible at this point to know how the debt ceiling debate is going to play out. It’s also highly uncertain what happens if the U.S. government defaults — catastrophe may follow, or it may not.
What is certain is that irrationality is ruling the day.
It’s past time to leave behind this orchestrated and false crisis. Our country faces a legion of real and serious problems. It’s time we got to work taking them on.
See also: "Suicide Watch: Debt Ceiling Showdown" by Jack Random. Posted on Counterpunch 7/29/11.
Washington is in the grip of a fever. It’s hard to find a word other than lunacy to describe what’s going on. We are veering toward potential economic catastrophe. And Congress is hung up on a debate that shouldn’t be occurring. It is debating an imaginary problem that conjures scary future scenarios but ignores dire existing circumstances. The consensus proffered solution to the imaginary problem would damage our country and further weaken our economy.
Democrats and Republicans are at loggerheads, but they are disagreeing primarily about how much harm they want to impose. That’s a very consequential disagreement, but it ignores the fact that we don’t need to impose any harm at all.
Let’s correct some of the upside-down components of the current debate.
1. There should not be a debate over increasing the nation’s debt ceiling.
Prior approval of increases — more than 100 — have been routine, and this time should be no different. Raising the debt ceiling merely authorizes the U.S. government to make good on spending previously authorized by Congress.
It is true that Republicans in Congress signaled some time ago that they would not easily agree to another increase in the debt ceiling. That’s why Democrats should have passed an increase in the last Congress, a move they declined to make because of fear of electoral consequences. At very least, the administration should have insisted on increasing the debt ceiling as a condition of agreeing to the December 2010 deal to extend the Bush tax cuts.
2. The government should be running larger, not smaller, deficits.
The country has not recovered from the Great Recession. One in six people who would like a full-time job are unable to find one. We don’t have to worry about hard times coming sometime in the future — we are living in hard times right now!
To fuel a stalled economy and put people back to work, the U.S. government should be spending more money. This is basic Keynesian economics. It shouldn’t be controversial. State governments are starved for cash, and laying off thousands of teachers, librarians, fire fighters and police. If the federal government gave the states block grants, they could keep people employed, and keep delivering needed services. Our country, and our economy, would be stronger.
Much of the country is suffering through a summer of staggering heat waves. This should be an urgent reminder of the need to take radical action to mitigate catastrophic climate change. Especially with so many people out of work, the government should be spending money to employ people to retrofit buildings around the country and to invest in R&D on solar and wind energy.
And, of course, there is no shortage of other pressing needs to which people can be put to work. By contrast, cutting spending right now will worsen our very severe economic crisis, and push more people out of work.
3. Our economic problems are present, not future.
It is both bewildering and unconscionable that pontificating politicians and pundits express so much concern for imagined future economic problems while ignoring the real and present suffering that pervades the country. There is also some very fuzzy math that takes over the discussion. If it continues to grow economically, and if it makes wise investments, the country is going to be significantly richer in the years and decades ahead. We’re not going to be poorer, irrespective of the size of the national debt.
4. It’s actually not very hard to find a few trillion dollars.
To say that the debt ceiling debate shouldn’t be taking place, and that we should be running larger deficits, is not to say there aren’t appropriate areas of the budget to cut, and appropriate revenue streams to tap.
On the spending side, among many other things, we could:
• Save more than a trillion dollars over 10 years by ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• Cut more than $500 billion from the Department of Defense budget by replacing private contractors and eliminating weapons systems the Pentagon says it does not need. Hundreds of billions of more in savings are available through modest cuts at DoD. The United States would still have, by far, the world’s largest military. A very modest proposal from the Congressional Progressive Caucus totals $2.3 trillion in savings over 10 years through ending the wars and cutting the Defense budget.
• Save more than $150 billion in pharmaceutical costs just by negotiating better prices with Big Pharma. More aggressive moves to fix the broken pharmaceutical development system could offer savings far larger, with the government obtaining a significant portion of well over a trillion dollars in savings on pharmaceutical expenditures over 10 years.
On the revenue side, among many other things, we could:
• Tax Wall Street speculation and raise between $1 trillion and $1.5 trillion over 10 years.
• End offshore tax haven abuses, and raise a trillion dollars over the next decade.
• Close corporate tax loopholes. By way of illustration, getting rid of just two large breaks, deferral of overseas revenue and accelerated depreciation, would raise about $700 billion. The Treasury Department lists $365 billion in corporate tax breaks being gifted annually — that’s $3.65 trillion over the 10-year period talked about in these debt debates! Thanks to all the loopholes and escapes, corporations are benefiting from record low tax rates — 21% on average (this is what they are actually paying, not the nominal rate). For a handful, the tax system is a source of revenue. Citizens for Tax Justice looked at 12 major companies that together made $171 billion in profits from 2008-2010 and found that the dozen companies together paid negative $2.5 billion in taxes, thanks to $62 billion in tax subsidies.
• Tax capital gains as ordinary income, and raise $1 trillion.
Many of these and other sensible budget ideas are included in the Congressional Progressive Caucus’s People’s Budget. A key thing to keep in mind about all these savings and increased revenue is that they should be ploughed back into public investments and public priorities. We need more net spending, not less. Over time, we need to reduce the deficit, but much of that will occur automatically, as the country moves back to fuller employment and more robust growth.
We do not need to touch, nor should we touch, Medicare or Medicaid. Nor should we tamper with Social Security, which is financed separately from the rest of the federal budget and has nothing to do with the debt. It’s impossible at this point to know how the debt ceiling debate is going to play out. It’s also highly uncertain what happens if the U.S. government defaults — catastrophe may follow, or it may not.
What is certain is that irrationality is ruling the day.
It’s past time to leave behind this orchestrated and false crisis. Our country faces a legion of real and serious problems. It’s time we got to work taking them on.
See also: "Suicide Watch: Debt Ceiling Showdown" by Jack Random. Posted on Counterpunch 7/29/11.
Friday, July 01, 2011
THE BRIDGE TO AUSTERITY (Made in China)
JAZZMAN CHRONICLES. DISSEMINATE FREELY.
By Jack Random
In 1989 the Loma Prieta earthquake brought down a section of the San Francisco Bay Bridge, weakening the structure to such an extent that rebuilding the 1936 monument to engineering was inevitable. When completed in 2013 the bridge, like virtually everything stocked in Wal-Mart, Target or any other mass merchandise chain, will bear on its underside the insignia: Made in China.
If ever there was a clear example of what is wrong with the American economy this is it. The state of California claims it will save $400 million on an estimated $7.2 billion project for its betrayal of American industry. The state does not say how much of that $400 million could have been saved by applying for federal funding which would have required the structure to employ American manufacturers.
Let it be clear: This has little to nothing to do with Free Trade. China can overcome the cost of transporting a bridge 6,500 miles not only because it employs cheap labor but also because the Chinese manufacturing industry is government owned and subsidized. If our government were to subsidize manufacturing it would be decried as a violation of the principles of Free Trade. Indeed, it would.
The fact is: Free Trade does not exist. International corporations and their proxies in government employ the principles of Free Trade selectively to justify labor exploitation and to maximize profits.
In the fantasy world of Free Trade all parties operate on an equal playing field according to the laws of supply and demand. In the real world everything a government does or fails to do creates imbalance. If government provides universal health care as they do in Europe it creates imbalance. If government provides incentives to drill for oil or produce ethanol it creates imbalance. If government guarantees a minimum standard of living wages and decent working conditions it creates imbalance. If government owns an industry and guarantees its success the imbalance is obvious. If it sanctions indentured servitude and neglects slave labor the imbalance is equally obvious.
The fact is: In a civilized world that recognizes the fundamental rights of labor, exploitation of labor is itself a subsidy and all nations that embrace those rights have a responsibility to punish nations that do not. They can do so by enforcing trade sanctions or by subsidizing their own industries.
In a perfect world, all merchants would enjoy equal opportunity while bearing equal responsibility. In the beginning there was equity. But then greed took hold and one merchant decided he could buy out the competition. Monopoly trumped free enterprise and the system became imbalanced and dysfunctional. Employers were empowered to require workers to work longer hours at lower wages under increasingly difficult conditions. Sweatshops and child labor became common. Retirement and medical assistance were nonexistent. If a worker was hurt on the job he became unemployed.
As the abuses mounted it became mandatory for a democratic government to act. Child labor was banned, working standards were mandated, and minimum wage was instituted. Monopolies were broken apart to restore competitive balance and workers gained the right to organize. Unions became the counterbalance to the power of big business.
The system flourished. For the first time in history, working people joined in the prosperity of the nation, laying the foundation for a middle class. Working people were empowered to buy goods and services beyond the necessities of life. Each generation looked forward to a better standard of living for the next. Businesses prospered on middle class consumption.
Social Security and Medicare answered a basic need while relieving employers of the burden.
The system worked not because businesses, industries and corporations were allowed to do as they pleased but because unions and government struck an equitable balance.
Now we have lost the balance because one party decided to serve their corporate masters exclusively and the only viable alternative decided it was easier to go along than to fight for the working people. When the economy went global it provided an opportunity to reset the table and labor was not invited. We no longer hear the term Monopoly but now we have corporations that are considered too big to fail. We have politicians who would prefer to see the economy collapse and working people suffer if it will give them a competitive advantage in the next election. We have governments at the state level declaring war on unions even though organized labor is but a whisper of the roar it once was. We have bipartisan agreement that the national debt is our dominant priority though real unemployment exceeds ten percent and those jobs that are available no longer offer a living wage.
We are badly out of balance and our government is as dysfunctional as our economic system. We are sustaining wars on multiple fronts while we are being told there is no choice but to welcome an age of austerity.
In the case of the Bay Bridge, the deal with China was struck in 2006 when the economy was relatively strong. The federal government was willing to make up at least some of the difference by subsidizing the project but the state of California under the leadership of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger placed no value on American jobs and American workers. Schwarzenegger and his co-conspirators in government ran the state like a corporation and corporations have no values, no sense of justice, and no principles of fair play.
As a result, when the new Bay Bridge is opened for business it will represent far more than a triumph of engineering; it will symbolize the systematic degradation of our economy. It will stand as a monument to the corporate world of greed and profiteering. It will be a magnificent memorial to the once-prospering middle class.
It will be a bridge to the age of austerity. In other nations it has begun in earnest and the people have taken to the streets in protest by the tens and hundreds of thousands. In other nations they have come to the realization that they were sold a bill of goods. They have watched the moneychangers run their economies into the ground while they escaped with all the loot. The ordinary working people are angry, fed up, and they are not going to take it lying down. What is happening now in Greece and Spain is a preview of what will happen in America if the austerity hysterics have their way.
When will we begin to wake up? When will we realize that we are all in this together? When California turns its back on workers in the steel mills of Michigan, we all lose. When union busting becomes a government mandate, working itself from state to state, every worker in America loses.
When our elected officials throw up their hands and claim they can do nothing about the exportation of our jobs to cheap labor markets because the capitalist bible of Free Trade economics forbids it, we must ask ourselves: Whom do they really represent?
We are at a crossroad. What we do now may well determine the kind of world future generations will inherit. Will it be a world in which only the wealthy can pursue higher education? Will it be a world that sacrifices the elderly and infirm so the elite can enjoy ever-lower tax rates? Will it be a world in which fathers and mothers must work two jobs just to pay down the debt?
Yes, we are at a crossroad and the only real power we have left is the vote. If we choose to squander it on politicians who preach austerity and raise the flag of Free Trade, then our cause is lost and our future is bleak.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.
By Jack Random
In 1989 the Loma Prieta earthquake brought down a section of the San Francisco Bay Bridge, weakening the structure to such an extent that rebuilding the 1936 monument to engineering was inevitable. When completed in 2013 the bridge, like virtually everything stocked in Wal-Mart, Target or any other mass merchandise chain, will bear on its underside the insignia: Made in China.
If ever there was a clear example of what is wrong with the American economy this is it. The state of California claims it will save $400 million on an estimated $7.2 billion project for its betrayal of American industry. The state does not say how much of that $400 million could have been saved by applying for federal funding which would have required the structure to employ American manufacturers.
Let it be clear: This has little to nothing to do with Free Trade. China can overcome the cost of transporting a bridge 6,500 miles not only because it employs cheap labor but also because the Chinese manufacturing industry is government owned and subsidized. If our government were to subsidize manufacturing it would be decried as a violation of the principles of Free Trade. Indeed, it would.
The fact is: Free Trade does not exist. International corporations and their proxies in government employ the principles of Free Trade selectively to justify labor exploitation and to maximize profits.
In the fantasy world of Free Trade all parties operate on an equal playing field according to the laws of supply and demand. In the real world everything a government does or fails to do creates imbalance. If government provides universal health care as they do in Europe it creates imbalance. If government provides incentives to drill for oil or produce ethanol it creates imbalance. If government guarantees a minimum standard of living wages and decent working conditions it creates imbalance. If government owns an industry and guarantees its success the imbalance is obvious. If it sanctions indentured servitude and neglects slave labor the imbalance is equally obvious.
The fact is: In a civilized world that recognizes the fundamental rights of labor, exploitation of labor is itself a subsidy and all nations that embrace those rights have a responsibility to punish nations that do not. They can do so by enforcing trade sanctions or by subsidizing their own industries.
In a perfect world, all merchants would enjoy equal opportunity while bearing equal responsibility. In the beginning there was equity. But then greed took hold and one merchant decided he could buy out the competition. Monopoly trumped free enterprise and the system became imbalanced and dysfunctional. Employers were empowered to require workers to work longer hours at lower wages under increasingly difficult conditions. Sweatshops and child labor became common. Retirement and medical assistance were nonexistent. If a worker was hurt on the job he became unemployed.
As the abuses mounted it became mandatory for a democratic government to act. Child labor was banned, working standards were mandated, and minimum wage was instituted. Monopolies were broken apart to restore competitive balance and workers gained the right to organize. Unions became the counterbalance to the power of big business.
The system flourished. For the first time in history, working people joined in the prosperity of the nation, laying the foundation for a middle class. Working people were empowered to buy goods and services beyond the necessities of life. Each generation looked forward to a better standard of living for the next. Businesses prospered on middle class consumption.
Social Security and Medicare answered a basic need while relieving employers of the burden.
The system worked not because businesses, industries and corporations were allowed to do as they pleased but because unions and government struck an equitable balance.
Now we have lost the balance because one party decided to serve their corporate masters exclusively and the only viable alternative decided it was easier to go along than to fight for the working people. When the economy went global it provided an opportunity to reset the table and labor was not invited. We no longer hear the term Monopoly but now we have corporations that are considered too big to fail. We have politicians who would prefer to see the economy collapse and working people suffer if it will give them a competitive advantage in the next election. We have governments at the state level declaring war on unions even though organized labor is but a whisper of the roar it once was. We have bipartisan agreement that the national debt is our dominant priority though real unemployment exceeds ten percent and those jobs that are available no longer offer a living wage.
We are badly out of balance and our government is as dysfunctional as our economic system. We are sustaining wars on multiple fronts while we are being told there is no choice but to welcome an age of austerity.
In the case of the Bay Bridge, the deal with China was struck in 2006 when the economy was relatively strong. The federal government was willing to make up at least some of the difference by subsidizing the project but the state of California under the leadership of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger placed no value on American jobs and American workers. Schwarzenegger and his co-conspirators in government ran the state like a corporation and corporations have no values, no sense of justice, and no principles of fair play.
As a result, when the new Bay Bridge is opened for business it will represent far more than a triumph of engineering; it will symbolize the systematic degradation of our economy. It will stand as a monument to the corporate world of greed and profiteering. It will be a magnificent memorial to the once-prospering middle class.
It will be a bridge to the age of austerity. In other nations it has begun in earnest and the people have taken to the streets in protest by the tens and hundreds of thousands. In other nations they have come to the realization that they were sold a bill of goods. They have watched the moneychangers run their economies into the ground while they escaped with all the loot. The ordinary working people are angry, fed up, and they are not going to take it lying down. What is happening now in Greece and Spain is a preview of what will happen in America if the austerity hysterics have their way.
When will we begin to wake up? When will we realize that we are all in this together? When California turns its back on workers in the steel mills of Michigan, we all lose. When union busting becomes a government mandate, working itself from state to state, every worker in America loses.
When our elected officials throw up their hands and claim they can do nothing about the exportation of our jobs to cheap labor markets because the capitalist bible of Free Trade economics forbids it, we must ask ourselves: Whom do they really represent?
We are at a crossroad. What we do now may well determine the kind of world future generations will inherit. Will it be a world in which only the wealthy can pursue higher education? Will it be a world that sacrifices the elderly and infirm so the elite can enjoy ever-lower tax rates? Will it be a world in which fathers and mothers must work two jobs just to pay down the debt?
Yes, we are at a crossroad and the only real power we have left is the vote. If we choose to squander it on politicians who preach austerity and raise the flag of Free Trade, then our cause is lost and our future is bleak.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.
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