The left side of the Gorge

Riot police violently disperse Occupy DC with batons

2012-02-05T14:26:00.001-05:00

California Warehouse Workers Fight Retaliation | Labor Notes

2012-02-01T12:27:00.000-05:00

California Warehouse Workers Fight Retaliation | Labor Notes

Verizon: Stop Tax-Dodging, Stop Union-Busting

2012-01-27T13:42:00.000-05:00

The Mighty Stef - We Want Blood

2012-01-26T10:46:00.005-05:00

The Onion lifts teachers' spirits [NOT]

2012-01-25T16:28:00.001-05:00

Well Christmas break is over, and spring break is a long ways off. Nonetheless, those who work to educate our youth will go to school tomorrow, full of joy at the chance to teach their brilliant pupils. That is, unless they happen to read this piece from the Onion:

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Department of Education released a comprehensive, nationwide evaluation of American schools Monday indicating that attempts to teach absolutely anything to these little shits is just a huge waste of everybody's time.
"We remain committed to providing every student in the country with access to a high-quality education," said Education Secretary Arne Duncan, adding that good schools are a key component to the success of American democracy. "But to be honest, none of that matters. We're not talking about promising young scholars here—we're talking about a bunch of fucking animals."
"We've basically flushed $11,000 down the toilet for every single one of these little bastards," Duncan continued. "Not to mention 18 years of my life."
The study, which analyzed the effectiveness of both public and private schools, found that efforts to enlighten these terrors on the subjects of math, history, grammar, and science are as productive as slamming your head into a goddamn brick wall. The research also confirmed that the unbearable shits, who take everything for granted, consistently piss away each learning opportunity they're given.
"When I first started teaching, I would see the smiling faces in my classroom and get excited about nurturing their young minds," said Melanie Whitman, 35, a first-grade teacher quoted in the report. "Now I can't look up from my desk without wanting to puke at the sight of all those little psychopaths."
Secretary Duncan said the study is the first to provide detailed evidence in support of the theory that third-grader Scott Kriesel is a complete fuck-up and perhaps even the living incarnation of Satan.
According to the report, billions of dollars in federal resources have been spent to modernize classrooms and improve teacher training, even though the little brats spend their entire days carving profanities into desks, shouting at whoever's in charge, and refusing to sit down, shut up, and actually learn something for once.
In addition, research suggests that school boards across the nation have grown tired of fighting to obtain funding for brand-new textbooks only to have the miserable fucks just deface them all with ejaculating penis drawings on the first day of class.
When asked if charter schools might help solve some of the problems faced by public education, Deputy Education Secretary Anthony W. Miller told reporters the data indicated any difference they made would amount to jack shit.
"Some charter schools perform better than their public counterparts, some don't," Miller said. "You can't change the fact that any school, no matter how it's funded, is ultimately just another type of building to contain these goddamn monsters for seven hours a day."
Miller added that more involvement from home was not the answer, either, as the little shits tend to have shithead parents who just make everything worse. The only findings from the study that provide a glimmer of hope, he said, are student absenteeism and dropout rates, which continue to increase.
"Christ, I dedicated my career to my students, actually thinking I could make a difference in their lives," middle-school teacher Joan Kubickers said Monday. "If I'd gone into public relations, I'd be making six figures by now. And at a PR firm, I bet I wouldn't have to worry about my tires getting slashed in the parking lot."
"Well, I have to go," she added. "The fucking hyenas in my third-period class await."
The Department of Education study comes on the heels of a survey last month that found 90 percent of all elementary school students resent being taught by pathetic losers who couldn't get a decent job in the real world.

I, for one. am glad they included the elementary kids' survey results at the end. They help prevent the article from overly romanticizing what goes on in our schools!

Life in the slow lane...

2012-01-23T14:20:00.000-05:00

A helpful reader told me about this fascinating interactive game developed for the good folks of Durham Urban Ministries. The premise of the game is simple: you're down to your last $1000, you need to rent a place, find a job, and then survive as best you can for a month. There's nice realistic touches, like having to choose between paying more for gas or rent (the game is very generous in assuming you already have a car all paid for). The best of the low-paying jobs available requires you to pass an actual typing test. All my poor friends who tried it say the game is too easy. None of my more affluent friends could make it past 20 days (hint: it helps to not bother getting any health or dental care). Anyways, the game is clever and thought-provoking. I encourage everyone who's interested to play it. Let me know if you make it through the month!

This game is called "Spent." You can play it here.

President Obama just needs to stand far away from the GOP circular firing squad!!

2012-01-20T10:12:00.000-05:00

Tom Tomorrow, with his usual brilliance, captures the zeitgeist in this recent cartoon:

Last night's SC GOP debate was hilarious-- the more the U.S. public watches these guys the less credibility they retain...

A 1%er who has a sense of humor!!

2012-01-14T16:15:00.001-05:00

An alert reader shared this humorous response of a 1%er to the newly aroused consciousness of the 99%. It is very fitting that this piece, by John Kenney, appeared in the classiest of all 1%er (and 1%er wannabee) journals, the venerable New Yorker:

"We, too, have mobilized.

We come from near and far, by any means necessary, some on private jets, others on extremely large private jets.

But you will not find us sleeping in a park and waiting in line at a Burger King to urinate. Have you heard of Mustique? Because that’s where we have mobilized. Don’t bother trying to Google Earth us, though, because we have proprietary military software that prevents you from doing so.

Our numbers may be smaller than those demonstrating in New York and other cities, but we are still a movement, coalesced around a cause, sleeping two and sometimes three people to a villa.

Perhaps you are wondering what our cause is. Perhaps you’re wondering why we, the richest people on the planet, have come together. Perhaps you’re curious whether what we’re undertaking couldn’t technically be called a vacation. These are all good questions.

We’re angry. We’re angry at something we’re calling “imagined frustration.” By this we mean that, except for Congress, the White House, banks, major lobbyists, and the editorial boards of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, no one is listening to us. And we’re tired of it.

You claim to know something about us. You think we are rich beyond comprehension, that we can do anything we please at any time, go anywhere we want at a moment’s notice, wander the earth in a state of constant bliss, enjoying abundant and fabulous sex. Perhaps you do know us.

There are those in the more liberal press who have questioned whether the wealthiest one per cent truly understand how difficult life is for so many Americans right now, and to that we would say— Oh, look, someone just brought in lobster and a Bollinger Grande Année.

Except for money and the almost unnatural flawlessness of my skin, we are no different, you and I. I don’t know who you are or what you look like or how much money you have in the bank. Nor does it matter. Because we’re just men. Unless you are a woman. Or a child. Or a pony. But ponies don’t read magazines, do they? Unless they’re precocious ponies, like Mister Ed. And he wasn’t real. But I think you get my point. And that is: we are the same, except for the coarseness of the skin on your elbows. Do you know that feeling, upon waking at 4 A.M., heart racing, your mind looking twenty, thirty years down the road, wondering how you are going to make ends meet? Worrying about what would happen if you lost your job, asking yourself how you’re going to pay for your kids’ college or retire? Well, I don’t. But I read a story about it once and remember thinking, I’m so glad that’s not me.

What do we want?

Here is our manifesto, still very much a work in progress, as it’s cocktail hour and several of our protesters are out at the pool:

—All wealth should be shared equally among the wealthy.

—Eradicate poverty. (Note: Maybe a clearer way to say this would be “Eradicate the poor.” Need to discuss.)

—End business as usual. (Note: Several members like the sound of this, but they don’t know what it means. A suggestion has been made to add the word “hours” after “business.”)

—Implement a rule whereby the public cannot look at us and must keep a distance of at least twenty feet at all times.

Yes, I have more things—more homes and cars and planes and art and underground passages and satellites and private militias and a person whose only job is to grow hair that is genetically identical to my own. But when you take off your pants and I take off my pants and we stand facing each other as naked as the day we were born, except for socks, all I would ask is that you feel my skin and tell me it’s not the softest skin you’ve ever felt on a man. And also realize that we are the same, except for the fact that I have four submarines."

I encourage you to read the rest of this elegant satire in the Nov. 28th edition of the New Yorker!!

The Plutocrats' "Ace in the hole"

2012-01-12T18:17:00.000-05:00

Here's Jamie Raskin, law professor at American University:

In 2000, in Bush v. Gore, the Rehnquist Court, by a 5-4 margin, called off vote-counting by the state of Florida and determined the outcome of a presidential election in favor of one lucky Texan.
In 2010, in Citizens United, the Roberts Court, by a 5-4 margin, declared that private corporations have a First Amendment right to engage in unlimited campaign spending and likely altered, for as long as anyone can see, the outcome of every major contested election in the country in favor of CEOs and Republican consultants who bundle their money.
The Supreme Court stole one election and sold off the rest of them.

This analysis is chillingly accurate. The Supreme Court right now is the plutocrats' ace in the hole. Whenever their paid servants, in the executive or legislative branch, assert some independence and manage to accomplish something that benefits the bottom 99%, the plutocrats turn to the friendly five Justices to put a stop to it. If there was no other reason to prevent, at all costs, a Republican from gaining the White House in 2012, the nomination of new Justices should be enough to make this a priority. "Liberal activist Judges" are actually exceedingly rare. All we need are people willing to decide cases on the merits, without trying to use their considerable power to undo generations of social and political progress. We may get more such nominees from Barack Obama. No Republican President, on the other hand, would resist the pressure from the right-wing to appoint another Alito or Roberts.

NYPD pulls the plug on OWS Global Revolution TV

2012-01-09T20:00:00.000-05:00

Orwellian echoes

2012-01-09T13:38:00.000-05:00

I had the somewat unusual distinction of graduating college in 1984. At that time, as I recall, many political observers felt obliged to take stock of how far we in the developed world had "progressed" towards George Orwell's dystopia, imagined in his famous novel set in that year. The year was chosen by Orwell in 1948 by merely flipping the 4 and 8. This was supposed to make us feel better about our dubious honor of becoming the "class of '84." I remember breathing a sigh of relief that, according to intelligent observers, we had only moved part of the way towards Orwell's dark vision-- and, according to the most optimistic at least, we might never get there in our lifetimes.

Even the miseries of Reagan's second term couldn't shake my generation's firm belief that the U.S. would never slide into a totalitarian regime. The collapse of the Soviet bloc, was, except for hard-core Stalinists, generally taken as evidence that humanity was sailing off on a new course, away from the harsh realities of our parents' experiences fighting fascism abroad and McCarthyism at home. Sure, President Reagan's firing of the air-traffic controllers was very disturbing to those of us concerned with workers' rights, but we were confident that organized labor would begin to recover some power with the election of Bill Clinton. How much we wanted to believe President Clinton's assurances that NAFTA would turn out to help working Americans after some initial dislocations! Yet some of us noticed right away that even Mexican labor wasn't sufficiently cheap for the global capitalist elites. "Outsourcing" jobs to Bangladesh, Vietnam, and wherever else men, women, and children would work for less than three dollars a day, proceeded at a tremendous clip. Don't worry, class of '84, a new golden age of plentiful hi-tech careers was upon us! Those of your neighbors and friends with less education could retrain and find good work at computer help desks and other fun places like that. And, for a few years in the '90s, there were Americans happily answering phones for Apple, I.B.M., and Microsoft. By the end of the decade, however, these jobs too had been "outsourced."

Well, O.K., the American middle class was firmly under the heel of the global capitalists: wages were falling, and folks were leveraging their home equity to take on massive debt and keep consuming at accustomed levels. Vague worries that things were going south were replaced with very specific outrage over the Supreme Court's coronation of President Bush II before all the Florida votes were counted. At least we could still speak our minds freely and travel without undue restrictions. Right?!?9/11 and the Patriot Act changed all that. Before long, once proud Americans were meekly accepting unnecessary and ridiculous humiliations in their daily lives. Soldiers with machine guns at airports, train-stations, bus terminals. Grin and bear it! 3-oz. maximum tube of toothpaste, take off your shoes and your belt, look "foreign?" then follow me, Abdul! Long-cherished 1st Amendment, and 4th Amendment rights were quickly thrown aside in the new "war on terror." Indeed, we were told, we should be terrified, and our taxes should be spent to bomb cities in Iraq so that we'd be "safer." Don't like killing innocent, men women, and children? Sorry, but we can't avoid "collateral damage" in the struggle against "islamofascists." The terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden is killed, yet we don't even pause in our worldwide "war on terror." Could it be that killing thousands of innocents throughout the globe might be creating new generations of terrorists? Don't ask that question, Ulysses, your facebook posting privileges might be revoked...

2012 dawns with a new "indefinite detention" policy the law of the land. The military can take you and throw away the key with no questions asked. Quaint notions of innocence before proof of guilt, due process, habeas corpus, freedom and liberty are destroyed overnight. Here's how George Orwell had Winston paint the picture in Chapter 3 of 1984:

"He knew in advance what O'Brien would say. That the Party did not seek power for its own ends, but only for the good of the majority. That it sought power because men in the mass were frail cowardly creatures who could not endure liberty or face the truth, and must be ruled over and systematically deceived by others who were stronger than themselves. That the choice for mankind lay between freedom and happiness, and that, for the great bulk of mankind, happiness was better. That the party was the eternal guardian of the weak, a dedicated sect doing evil that good might come, sacrificing its own happiness to that of others. The terrible thing, thought Winston, the terrible thing was that when O'Brien said this he would believe it....

The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites....

We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.

It may have taken an extra 28 years, but the global Party of the 1% has succeeded in destroying our political, economic, and personal freedoms. Legislation that will allow the Government to prevent me or anyone else from pointing this out in a blog is already pending in Congress. "Homeland Security" has replaced "Home of the free and the brave." My ancestors sacrificed much, over more than three centuries, to build this great country. I call today on all patriots, liberal or conservative, to demand our country back. Read the Bill of Rights!! Occupy the Commons!! AWAKE NOW OR SLEEP IN ETERNAL SLAVERY!!!

A more serious post is on its way...

2012-01-08T01:14:00.000-05:00

Our friends at mockpaperscissors.com hit another one outta da pahk:

Indiana governor ends attempt to limit protest at statehouse

2012-01-04T16:12:00.000-05:00

Indiana governor ends attempt to limit protest at statehouse

Good news for all my Hoosier friends!!

This Powerful Clip Is Exactly Why We Support #OccupyWallStreet

2011-12-27T01:59:00.000-05:00

This Powerful Clip Is Exactly Why We Support #OccupyWallStreet

Why even conservative judges can sometimes help workers

2011-12-14T13:04:00.000-05:00

Mike Hall brings us this news from the sunny Southwest:

A unanimous New Mexico State Supreme Court said Wednesday that tea party Republican Gov. Susana Martinez overstepped her authority when earlier this year she fired two members and the executive director of Public Employee Labor Relations Board. The New Mexico Federation of Labor (NMFL) filed suit against Martinez’s action.
The court ordered Martinez to reinstate the two fired board members.
The three-person labor board enforces the state’s public employee collective bargaining law and consists of one member chosen by state employee unions, one member chosen by state department heads and one member chosen by the other two members. Although the governor makes the official appointments, the selection process is performed by unions, management and the board itself.
The board also chooses an executive director. It’s not clear what will happen with the executive director’s position. The board could rehire the former director or choose another director.
The Santa Fe New Mexican reports:
The court agreed with arguments by Shane Youtz, who represented the New Mexico Federation of Labor AFL-CIO, that the board should maintain independence from the executive branch because by its very nature it decides cases involving the executive branch.
Youtz told the justices that of 43 cases pending before the board at the time of the firings, 17 directly involved the governor.

I like this story because it illustrates an important point that is sometimes overlooked by progressives, who despair of the labor movement's chances to avoid complete destruction in 21st century America. The fact that the U.S. Supreme Court has a 5 member majority that is vehemently anti-worker and pro-corporation, doesn't mean that the entire American judiciary shares this extreme bias. The judiciary is indeed an inherently conservative institution, and it does in fact favor the interests of capital over labor 99 times out of 100. Yet precisely because the judiciary is conservative it will sometimes stop or slow down the attempts of the radical far-right to abolish organized labor in our country. Why? Because for many decades in the 20th century, the establishment consensus was that some level of social harmony was best achieved by allowing workers to exercise at least a few minimal rights in the workplace. President Reagan began a process of changing this consensus among Republicans, but the clear precedent, that most judges alive today learned in law school, was that workers should have at least some remedies against the most extreme abuses of their employers.

Clearly the U.S. labor movement desperately needs a massive growth in popular support for their cause, to combat the concerted attack they face from the big-money interests. We all need to work very hard to that end. We may find to our surprise that occasionally conservative (as opposed to batshit insane reactionary) judges will support organized labor. They will do so because, weakened as it is, organized labor is still to them part of the natural order of things, like the rivalry between the Red Sox and Yankees, or fireworks on the 4th of July.

Why we may be thanking OWS in a few years for pushing the envelope today...

2011-12-13T15:48:00.000-05:00

Every historical moment is unique. Yet certain themes recur with stunning regularity across space and time. The unholy alliance of excessive economic dominance, and government power, is one such familiar spectacle. If Eugene Debs returned to us tomorrow, he could pretty much dust off the same speech he gave in Chicago on November 22, 1895:

If liberty is a birthright which has been wrested from the weak by the strong, or has been placed in peril by those who were commissioned to guard it as Gheber priests watch the sacred fires they worship, what is to be done? Leaving all other nations, kindred and tongues out of the question, what is the duty of Americans? Above all, what is the duty of American workingmen whose liberties have been placed in peril? They are not hereditary bondsmen. Their fathers were free born—their sovereignty none denied and their children yet have the ballot. It has been called “a weapon that executes a free man’s will as lighting does the will of God.” It is a metaphor pregnant with life and truth. There is nothing in our government it can not remove or amend. It can make and unmake presidents and congresses and courts. It can abolish unjust laws and consign to eternal odium and oblivion unjust judges, strip from them their robes and gowns and send them forth unclean as lepers to bear the burden of merited obloquy as Cain with the mark of a murderer. It can sweep away trusts, syndicates, corporations, monopolies, and every other abnormal development of the money power designed to abridge the liberties of workingmen and enslave them by the degradation incident to poverty and enforced idleness, as cyclones scatter the leaves of the forest. The ballot can do all this and more. It can give our civilization its crowning glory—the co—operative commonwealth.
To the unified hosts of American workingmen fate has committed the charge of rescuing American liberties from the grasp of the vandal horde that have placed them in peril, by seizing the ballot and wielding it to regain the priceless heritage and to preserve and transmit it without scar or blemish to the generations yet to come....
Defeated at every point, their plans all frustrated, out—generaled in tactics and strategy, while the hopes of labor were brightening and victory was in sight, the corporations, goaded to desperation, played their last card in the game of oppression by an appeal to the federal judiciary and to the federal administration. To this appeal the response came quick as lightning from a storm cloud. It was an exhibition of the debauching power of money which the country had never before beheld.
The people had long been familiar with such expressions as “money talks,” “money rules,” and they had seen the effects of its power in legislatures and in congress. They were conversant with Jay Gould’s methods of gaining his legal victories by. “buying a judge” in critical cases. They had tracked this money power, this behemoth beast of prey, into every corporate enterprise evolved by our modern civilization, as hunters track tigers in India jungles, but never before in the history of the country had they seen it grasp with paws and jaws the government of the United States and bend it to its will and make it a mere travesty of its pristine grandeur.
The people had seen this money power enter the church, touch the robed priest at the altar, blotch his soul, freeze his heart and make him a traitor to his consecrated vows and send him forth a Judas with a bag containing the price of his treason; or, if true to his conviction, ideas and ideals, to suffer the penalty of ostracism, to be blacklisted and to seek in vain for a sanctuary in which to expound Christ’s doctrine of the brotherhood of man.
The people had seen this money power enter a university and grasp a professor and hurl him headlong into the street because every faculty of mind, redeemed by education and consecrated to truth, pointed out and illumined new pathways to the goal of human happiness and national glory.
The people had seen this money power practicing every art of duplicity, growing more arrogant and despotic as it robbed one and crushed another, building its fortifications of the bones of its victims, and its palaces out of the profits of its piracies, until purple and fine linen on the one side and rags upon the other side, defined conditions as mountain ranges and rivers define the boundaries of nations—palaces on the hills, with music and dancing and the luxuries of all clinics, earth, air and sea—huts in the valley, dark and dismal, where the music is the dolorous “song of the shirt” and the luxuries rags and crusts.

If not for the pioneering efforts of Eugene Debs, our nation could never have embraced the less radical New Deal of FDR. What we need in 2012 is someone to clearly advocate for working people in the public sphere. Not just in defense of unions, but on behalf of all of us who produce the wealth so greedily snatched up by those who pile it up in their off-shore accounts.

Rep. David Cicilline gets serious

2011-12-12T11:40:00.000-05:00

It's too bad more of our congresscritters couldn't learn from these wise words of 1st-term Congressman David Cicilline (D-RI):

"Partisan gridlock, vitriolic rhetoric, and countless scandals have each done their part in recent years to eat away at public confidence in Washington. It’s a sad fact that only 9% of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing today according to a CBS News/NY Times poll conducted in October. Regardless of your political views, I think we can all agree that this is not a number we can be proud of.
If we are going to put our country back on the right track, we have to restore public trust by fixing what’s wrong with Washington. That’s why I recently introduced legislation to ban lobbying by members of Congress and announced my support for a series of other reforms to restore faith in government, reduce corporate influence on our political process, and close loopholes that allow Members of Congress to benefit from their positions.
We can’t begin to restore the trust that has been lost between Congress and the American people if we don’t first change the popular perception that too many elected officials see public service only as a means to personal gain. What made the Jack Abramoff investigation so shocking to so many people wasn’t the close relationship between K Street and Capitol Hill as much as the venality and shamelessness of those involved. For too long, people have felt apprehensive about the revolving door that exists between serving in Congress and working as a corporate lobbyist, but they’ve allowed it to continue because they don’t believe they can do anything to stop it.
This is not the case, we can and we must do something about it. Public service is a sacred trust and responsibility, and we need to ensure that it is always treated and viewed as such. One way we can achieve this goal is to prevent former Members of Congress from ever cashing in on their positions by lobbying their former colleagues.

That’s why I recently introduced H.R. 3491, a bill that would impose a lifetime ban on former Members of Congress engaging in lobbying contacts with covered executive branch officials, or any Member, officer, or employee of the House or Senate. Violators would be subject to penalties of up to $50,000 in fines and a year in prison. While existing laws ban Senators from lobbying for two years after leaving office and Members of the House for a year, a lifetime ban is necessary to help ensure that those running for office and serving in our government cannot one day take advantage of their public office to lobby the federal government.
We also know that corporate influence in the political arena extends well beyond lobbying Congress. The Supreme Court’s decision last year in Citizens United opened the floodgates for profligate corporate spending to influence election outcomes. In addition, by opening the door to Independent Expenditure-Only Committees (known as Super PACs), Citizens United allows corporations to spend unlimited amounts on elections without any requirement to disclose their activities. It’s not hard to see just how much of a threat this poses to the basic principle of “one person, one vote.”
I recently joined 25 of my colleagues in the House as a cosponsor of H.J.RES.78, which would reverse Citizens United and amend the Constitution to ensure that Congress and the states retain the right to limit or eliminate corporate spending in elections. The Constitution has been amended numerous times throughout history to protect and expand the voting rights of women, minorities, and young people, and now it’s time to do the same to ensure that the voices of individual voters are not drowned out by wealthy corporate interests.
Lastly, we must ensure that Members of Congress play by the same rules as everyone else. If a corporate executive buys stock based on information not available to the general public, they get sent to jail, but Members of Congress can do the same thing today with impunity. Earlier this year, a study found that from 1985 to 2001, investments made by Members of the House of Representatives performed 6% better than the market each year. In their report, the researchers opined that this performance could be a result of Members of Congress capitalizing on their “access to non-public information that could have a substantial impact on certain businesses, industries or the economy as a whole.”
In order to rebuild public trust, it is imperative for Members of Congress to not even appear as if they are personally benefitting from their public office. I am a cosponsor of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, H.R. 1148, which will make this goal a reality and bar Members of Congress, their staff, and the executive branch from buying or selling securities, commodity futures, or swaps based on information that is not available to the general public. Passing this bill will make it clear that public service is an end in itself, not a means to personal profit.
Even as we face mounting challenges at home and abroad, Washington has continued with business as usual – leaving most people justifiably frustrated and disillusioned with our political process. What it takes to restore faith in our government is simple, but it won’t be easy. Congress will have to enact far-reaching reforms that show we are serious about governing, even if it means giving up some of the personal benefits that come with public service. It’s time we get to work."

As a former Rhode Islander, who worked on David Cicilline's campaign, I'm proud of the job he's been doing for lil'Rhody. He is also brave to publish this thoughtful piece in last Tuesday's DailyKos, a notoriously liberal website!

More Reichsense

2011-12-10T14:32:00.001-05:00

Once again, in his recent post on HuffPost, the shortest Clinton cabinet member, Robert Reich, shows why he's the greatest in intellectual stature:

"Wall Street is its own worst enemy. It should have welcomed new financial regulation as a means of restoring public trust. Instead, it's busily shredding new regulations and making the public more distrustful than ever.

The Street's biggest lobbying groups have just filed a lawsuit against the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, seeking to overturn its new rule limiting speculative trading.

For years Wall Street has speculated like mad in futures markets -- food, oil, other commodities -- causing prices to fluctuate wildly. The Street makes bundles from these gyrations, but they have raised costs for consumers.

In other words, a small portion of what you and I pay for food and energy has been going into the pockets of Wall Street. It's just another hidden redistribution from the middle class and poor to the rich.

The new Dodd-Frank law authorizes the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to limit such speculative trading. The commission considered 15,000 comments, largely from the Street. It did numerous economic and policy analyses, carefully weighing the benefits to the public of the new regulation against its costs to the Street. It even agreed to delay enforcement of the new rule for at least a year.

But this wasn't enough for the Street. The new regulation would still put a crimp in Wall Street's profits.

So the Street is going to court. What's its argument? The commission's cost-benefit analysis wasn't adequate.

At first blush it's a clever ploy. There's no clear legal standard for an "adequate" weighing of costs and benefits of financial regulations, since both are so difficult to measure. And putting the question into the laps of federal judges gives the Street a huge tactical advantage because the Street has almost an infinite amount of money to hire so-called "experts" (some academics are not exactly prostitutes but they have their price) who will use elaborate methodologies to show benefits have been exaggerated and costs underestimated.

It's not the first time the Street has used this ploy. Last year, when the Securities and Exchange Commission tried to implement a Dodd-Frank policy making it easier for shareholders to nominate company directors, Wall Street sued the SEC. It alleged the commission's cost-benefit analysis for the new rule was inadequate.

Last July, a federal appeals court -- inundated by Wall Street lawyers and hired-gun "experts" -- agreed with the Street. So much for shareholders nominating company directors.

Obviously, government should weigh the costs against the benefits of anything it does. But when it comes to the regulation of Wall Street, one overriding cost doesn't make it into any individual weighing: The public's mounting distrust of the entire economic system, generated by the Street's repeated abuse of the public's trust.

Wall Street's shenanigans have convinced a large portion of America that the economic game is rigged.

Yet capitalism depends on trust. Without trust, people avoid even sensible economic risks. They also begin trading in gray markets and black markets. They think that if the big guys cheat in big ways, they might as well begin cheating in small ways. And when they think the game is rigged, they're easy prey for political demagogues with fast tongues and vacuous solutions.

Tally up these costs and it's a whopper.

Wall Street has blanketed America in a miasma of cynicism. Most Americans assume the reason the Street got its taxpayer-funded bailout without strings in the first place was because of its political clout. That must be why the banks didn't have to renegotiate the mortgages of Americans -- many of whom, because of the economic collapse brought on by the Street's excesses, are still under water. Some are drowning.

That must be why taxpayers didn't get equity stakes in the banks we bailed out -- as Warren Buffet got when he bailed out Goldman Sachs. That means when the banks became profitable gain we didn't get any of the upside gains; we just padded the Street's downside risks.

The Street's political clout must be why most top Wall Street executives who were bailed out by taxpayers still have their jobs, have still avoided prosecution, are still making vast fortunes -- while tens of millions of average Americans continue to lose their jobs, their wages, their medical coverage, or their homes.

And why the Dodd-Frank bill was filled with loopholes big enough for Wall Street executives and traders to drive their ferrari's through.

The cost of such cynicism has leeched deep into America, causing so much suspicion and anger that our politics has become a cauldron of rage. It's found expression in Tea Partiers and Occupiers, and millions of others who think the people at the top have sold us out. And it causes some Americans to be attracted to demagogues offering fast talk and whacky ideas.

Every week, it seems, we learn something new about how Wall Street has screwed us. Last week we heard from Bloomberg News (that had to go to court for the information) that in 2009 the Street's six largest banks borrowed almost half a trillion dollars from the Fed at nearly zero cost -- but never disclosed it.

In early 2009, after Citigroup tapped the Fed for almost $100 billion, the bank's CEO, Vikram Pandit, had the temerity to call Citi's first quarter the "best since 2007." Is there another word for fraud?

Finally, everyone knows the biggest banks are too big to fail -- and yet, despite this, Congress won't put a cap on the size of the banks. The assets of the four biggest -- J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo -- now equal 62 percent of total commercial bank assets. That's up from 54 percent five years ago. Throw in Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, and these six leviathans preside over the American economy like Roman emperors.

Speaking of Rome, if Italy or Greece defaults and Europe's major banks can't make payments on their debts to Wall Street, another bailout will surely be required. And the politics won't be pretty.

There you have it. A federal court will now weigh costs and benefits of a modest rule designed to limit speculative trading in food and energy.

But in coming months and years, the American public will weigh the social costs and social benefits of Wall Street itself. And it wouldn't surprise me if they decide the costs of the Street as it is far outweigh the benefits.

The result will be caps on the size of banks. Some will be broken up. Glass-Steagall will be resurrected. Some Wall Street bigwigs may even see in the insides of jails.

If so, the Street has only itself to blame."

Thanks again, Mr. Secretary, for your valuable "Reichsense!!"

Rhode Island leads the way!!

2011-12-05T11:30:00.000-05:00

Here's the wonderful story of Carmen Castillo, as told by Amy Dean on truthout.org:

If labor and other progressive groups are going to rebuild an economy that works for the 99 percent in America, they need to do great organizing in workplaces and communities and they also need to build deep coalitions among themselves. But that’s not enough.

They also need to translate their organizing muscle into political power. And that means looking at electoral strategies in a new way.

The progressive victories in this November’s elections were inspiring and important, but they were essentially defensive. We fended off Republican attacks in Ohio, Mississippi and Maine, but we need to be winning pro-active campaigns, too. We need to be able to use electoral politics to reinforce our organizing strategies.

We often elect lesser-evil politicians and send them off in the vague hope that they will do the right thing once taking office. But we have seen time and time again, that even when we have friends in elected positions, they often end up holding the grassroots constituencies that got them elected at arm’s length. Politicians face huge pressures from corporate interests once in power and, consequently, just having a “D” after their name does not guarantee that they will take tough stands on behalf of working people. We don’t need friends in office; we need champions.

Fortunately, activists in Providence, Rhode Island – prominently including the hotel and restaurant workers union (UNITE HERE) – are providing a model for electing officials at the municipal level who will champion the interests of working people. These progressives are creating impressive coalitions, overcoming historic divides between the building trades and other unions and translating organizing strength into a political program that can produce real community benefits.

What’s more – in an exciting special election this Tuesday – they succeeded in electing one of their truest champions yet. Carmen Castillo, a hotel housekeeper and a rank-and-file union leader, brought to her campaign the life experience of an immigrant and a single mom, along with the vision of an organizer. She is drawing on the strength of an electoral coalition that has never looked more impressive.

It Takes an Agenda

Providence’s city council has long been heavily Democratic and all 15 council members currently in office are Democrats. In this setting, party affiliation is not the main issue. The importance of having true champions in office became clear when activists started thinking big – imagining an economic agenda that could be enacted at the municipal level and would truly benefit working people.

In the past decade, social movement thinkers have recognized that not all policies must be set at the federal level, where Congressional conservatives can easily stonewall progressive measures. By presenting an alternative vision for economic development at the level of states and metropolitan regions, grassroots movements can have an impact on critical issues of housing, transportation, environmental protection and living-wage standards.

UNITE HERE has been actively involved in Rhode Island politics for many years, but in 2010, the union aggressively expanded its volunteer operation to give workers a louder voice in local elections, especially in Providence. They connected their drive with established efforts by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) locals 1199 and 615, the Laborers, and a variety of community groups that had been working to build a core of strong progressives on the city council. In the 2010 elections, five council candidates endorsed by the union prevailed, making up a third of the body.

The point for the union was not just to get friends into office. It was to pass innovative policies that could help working people in the city in a concrete way. A key example of the types of policies they envisioned was a worker retention ordinance, which could help union members keep their jobs when businesses changed hands and reduce the temptation of subcontracting as a way to reduce decent-paying jobs. An initial version of the ordinance passed in 2009, an expanded version passed in 2010 and it has survived initial court challenges. As Chris Cook, a worker at the Westin Hotel in Providence and vice president of UNITE HERE Local 217 explains:

“If a new company comes in the hospitality industry in Providence and purchases an existing business with existing employees, the ordinance says that the new owners can’t terminate workers on the spot; they have to give them three months. This is huge. It gives workers a chance to get to know the new boss and maintain their jobs, or it gives them three months to find a new job so they aren’t just thrown out on the street.”

The ordinance has since been cited as a precedent in fights in other parts of the country. It is an example of social justice activists figuring out what decisions can be made at the local level that actually impact people’s lives – and then leveraging their organizing to produce political gains.

Carmen’s Story

UNITE HERE saw that political power at the municipal level could produce real benefits, not only for its members, but also for wider communities of working- and middle-class people. Consequently, the union has sought to further develop its political program by encouraging grassroots leaders within its organization to run for office. When council member Miguel C. Luna – a strong advocate of social justice causes – suddenly died in August, the union decided it needed a champion to replace him. The organization decided to back Carmen Castillo.

“I’ve known Carmen for 14 years and she’s been a true blue fighter for the union on the contract committee, shop steward, executive board member,” says Cook. “She can rally the troops at the drop of a dime. She’s hardcore. Of course we are excited to support her.”

Castillo will bring more than just her union experience to the Council. “She isn’t a one-sided candidate; she is also a huge part of her community. She knows what it is to pay her mortgage; she knows what it is to try and make ends meet and get the groceries on the table for her children, get them through college. She is concerned that we have clean streets to live in, good homes. As hard as she fights on worker issues; she is going to fight on issues of community.”

In a ward of largely Latinos and people of color, which have had problems with racial profiling and Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, Castillo’s Republican opponent, Christian Chirino, espoused Tea Party-like positions and advocated militarizing the border. In contrast, Castillo’s story embodies a powerful progressive vision of what our country can be – a vision that is pro-worker, pro-immigrant and pro-American.

“I came from the Dominican Republic almost nineteen years ago with my three little girls and I started working at the Westin Hotel in 1994,” Castillo says. “I came to this country for opportunities for my family. I was looking for a better life. I wanted the opportunity to work to support my family.”

Having a union job allowed her to do that. “I’m a room attendant,” she says. “I’m a single mother. I worked hard to bring my daughters through college. Now, I want to do something for my community to give back for what this country did for me. When my best friend Miguel Luna passed away, I decided to run.”

Tuesday’s victory is a testament to her perseverance. “Sometimes we’re so tired,” she noted during the campaign. “I am still working in the hotel, I didn’t quit my job. When you are working 40 hours a week and working 40 hours on the campaign, it’s too much. But I do it because I know that to win we need to work hard.”

A Coalition for Political Success

Ultimately, it wasn’t just one union that contributed to this formula for political success. Castillo’s campaign drew support from the Laborers, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), the Painters, SEIU and the Teachers Union, as well as from the city’s Central Labor Council.

The participation of the building trade unions was particularly important. Historically, there has often been a political divide between the building trades and service sector unions. However, in Providence, the modest size of the area has allowed coalitions to form and made close collaboration possible.

As Scott Duhamel, a representative at the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades and secretary treasurer of the Rhode Island Building Trades and Construction Council, explains: “Rhode Island is a small state, very much of a city-state. There is a lot of collaboration between public and private unions in this state, particularly in these dire times. We’re all linked pretty intricately right now in a number of struggles. It’s a no brainer.”

Asked about historic divisions, Duhamel cites a new generation of leadership as a key to building stronger coalitions. “There is some new leadership in the building trades and you can easily categorize them as much more progressive than their predecessors,” he says. “Since they assumed leadership there has been a big effort to make sure that different unions are aware of each others’ strategies. And it has been very successful.”

For Duhamel, supporting Castillo’s victory is a part of the building trades reclaiming a pro-immigrant history and overcoming divides with the community that have formed in past decades. “Our history, we are based on the immigrant experience,” he says. “The early building trades were manned and built by a lot of new immigrants to the United States. But we became a closed club; there’s no denying it. History shows it. In the ’60s and the ’70s, and the ’80s … we were thumbing our nose at the inner-city residents, who were once mostly African-American, but have now become Latino and Asian. But someone finally realized this was a big mistake. We haven’t connected where we should have been connecting, so around the country there are some groups that have made steps to change.”

In Providence, this push for change connected to the effort to elect champions in city council. As in some other cities, political power allowed building trade unions to pass Community Workforce Agreements, which not only mandate that major construction projects in the city hire union workers, but also that members of local communities – including inner-city communities – be hired. Apprenticeship programs facilitated by these agreements have allowed increasing numbers of people of color to enter the unions.

It is not uncommon for unions to circle the wagons when they are under attack – as they did in Wisconsin and Ohio. But what makes the Rhode Island case special and hopefully groundbreaking, is that labor’s unity is being used to win ground. What unity means is that each union does not cut its own deal with an employer or the political establishment, allowing piecemeal, short-term gains to divide the movement. Instead, different members of the coalition must look at the big picture and hold out for agreements that benefit the movement as a whole. It takes some risk and some faith to stand with an ally in demanding additional concessions once your needs have already been met. But it is powerful to see when it happens.

“Successes begets success,” says Duhamel. “All of the politicians, taxpayers, developers want to show that they give back to the community. When it’s done right, it’s success all around for everyone.”

The Road to Victory

With a broad coalition of unions and community groups signed on, Castillo’s campaign became a formidable force. At the municipal level, the limited scale of elections allows grassroots, door-to-door field campaigning to be a key factor in determining which candidates prevail. In the case of Castillo, it proved decisive. In a six-way primary for the Democratic nomination, all candidates vowed to be the friends of working people. But social movements were able to advance a champion who is looking to engage them as a partner in governing.

UNITE HERE’s Cook explains, “When Carmen ran in the primary, we had somewhere around 75 workers who put in around 190 three hour shifts of walking the streets, knocking on doors, talking to residents, making phone banking, passing out literature. In the end, we won by 29 votes.”

The very slim margin of victory made the importance of grassroots campaigning undisputable. “If we had won this by 200 or 300 votes,” says Cook, “maybe you could say she would have won anyway. But when it came down to a 29-vote victory, every person out on the doors mattered.”

On Tuesday, Castillo went on to win in the general election with close to 495 votes out of 650 votes. A representative of the 99 percent who is now taking office, she will be bringing her experience as a hotel housekeeper, as an immigrant and as a single mom to the city council. Cook takes a powerful lesson from the experience. “You can’t say it can’t be done,” he says. “I encourage people to step up, stand up and be counted and run. We certainly need more workers, more people who know what our struggle is to be elected. And it can be done.”

Congratulations to Carmen, and kudos to Providence for supporting her!!

Big business freaks over being asked to hang a free poster on the wall!!

2011-12-01T11:07:00.000-05:00

This video is funny, but also a sad commentary on how out of whack the 1% is that they could whine about hanging up a free poster!!

http://youtu.be/1DzlOHrtw_4

Enjoy your Thursday my faithful Leftsiders!!

Professor West's stirring call to action!

2011-11-30T20:31:00.000-05:00

Professor Cornel West wrote this fine front-page piece for our November North American Edition of The Occupied Wall Street Journal:

"We the people of the global Occupy movement embody and enact a deep democratic awakening with genuine joy and fierce determination. Our movement—leaderless and leaderful—is a soulful expression of a moral outrage at the ugly corporate greed that pushes our society and world to the brink of catastrophe. We are aware that our actions have inaugurated a radical enlightenment in a moment of undeniable distrust and disgust with oligarchic economies, corrupt politicians, arbitrary rule of law and corporate media weapons of mass distraction. And we intend to sustain our momentum by nurturing our bonds of trust, fortifying our bodies, hearts and minds and sticking together through hell or high water in order to create a better world through a deep democratic revolution.

We refuse to be mere echoes of the vicious lies that support an illegitimate status quo. Our deep democratic awakening takes the form of we everyday people raising our individual and collective voices to tell the painful truths about unjust systems and unfair structures that yield unnecessary social misery. The past thirty years of a top-down, one-sided class war on precious poor and working people—with the greatest transfer of wealth from bottom to top in human history—have taught us that we either fight together in the name of truth and justice or we lose our livelihoods and sacred honor. In this sense, the movement is already victorious: our organizing and mobilizing have shifted public discourses toward truth and justice—towards a focus on corporate greed, wealth inequality, escalating poverty, obscene levels of unemployment, the role of big money in politics, and abusive military and police power. But we have work ahead of us yet.

The full-scale bankruptcy of the neo-liberal order—of deregulated markets, unaccountable oligarchs, bribed politicians, is now an established fact of life and history. Its age is coming to an end. Our deep democratic enlightenment must break out of our narrow intellectual frameworks and our parochial cultural habitus. Like the inventors of jazz, we must be open-minded, flexible, fluid, inclusive, transparent, courageous, self-critical, compassionate and visionary. We must recast old notions of empire, class, race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and nature into new ways of thinking and being. Our movement is a precious, sublime, messy and funky form of incubation. Again like jazz, we must embody and enact a loving embrace of the art of our collaborative creations. We must embody a universal embrace of all those in the human family, and sentient beings, and consolidate an unstoppable fortitude in the face of systems of oppression and structures of domination. We will suffer, shudder and struggle together with smiles on our faces and a love supreme in our souls. Just as justice is what love looks like in public, and tenderness is what love feels like in private, deep democratic revolution is what justice looks like in practice.

Revolution may scare some people because of its connotation of violence. And this is understandable in light of many past revolutions, such as the American revolutions against monarchy in 1776 or against slavery in 1861. But the revolution in our time—against oligarchy and plutocracy—need not be an ugly and violent one. The rich legacies of Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, and recent revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, have taught us that we can deal with our social catastrophes with social compassion and that we can transform unjust societies with courageous visions and nonviolent strategies. If we equip ourselves with truthful systemic analyses of power in our minds, moral commitments of steel in our backs and a genuine joy in serving others in our hearts, then our dream of a nascent justice spread across the globe may be no mere illusion.

We are prisoners of a blood-stained, tear-soaked hope. This means we are free to imagine and create a more deeply democratic world than we have yet witnessed.”

I have nothing to add, except to say, “Amen," Brother Cornel!!

Accurate account of Fed/City collusion in fascist suppression of free speech

2011-11-29T20:36:00.000-05:00

Here's the skinny from Naomi Wolf in last friday's guardian post:

"US citizens of all political persuasions are still reeling from images of unparallelled police brutality in a coordinated crackdown against peaceful OWS protesters in cities across the nation this past week. An elderly woman was pepper-sprayed in the face; the scene of unresisting, supine students at UC Davis being pepper-sprayed by phalanxes of riot police went viral online; images proliferated of young women – targeted seemingly for their gender – screaming, dragged by the hair by police in riot gear; and the pictures of a young man, stunned and bleeding profusely from the head, emerged in the record of the middle-of-the-night clearing of Zuccotti Park.

But just when Americans thought we had the picture – was this crazy police and mayoral overkill, on a municipal level, in many different cities? – the picture darkened. The National Union of Journalists and the Committee to Protect Journalists issued a Freedom of Information Act request to investigate possible federal involvement with law enforcement practices that appeared to target journalists. The New York Times reported that "New York cops have arrested, punched, whacked, shoved to the ground and tossed a barrier at reporters and photographers" covering protests. Reporters were asked by NYPD to raise their hands to prove they had credentials: when many dutifully did so, they were taken, upon threat of arrest, away from the story they were covering, and penned far from the site in which the news was unfolding. Other reporters wearing press passes were arrested and roughed up by cops, after being – falsely – informed by police that "It is illegal to take pictures on the sidewalk."
In New York, a state supreme court justice and a New York City council member were beaten up; in Berkeley, California, one of our greatest national poets, Robert Hass, was beaten with batons. The picture darkened still further when Wonkette and Washingtonsblog.com reported that the Mayor of Oakland acknowledged that the Department of Homeland Security had participated in an 18-city mayor conference call advising mayors on "how to suppress" Occupy protests.
To Europeans, the enormity of this breach may not be obvious at first. Our system of government prohibits the creation of a federalised police force, and forbids federal or militarised involvement in municipal peacekeeping.
I noticed that rightwing pundits and politicians on the TV shows on which I was appearing were all on-message against OWS. Journalist Chris Hayes reported on a leaked memo that revealed lobbyists vying for an $850,000 contract to smear Occupy. Message coordination of this kind is impossible without a full-court press at the top. This was clearly not simply a case of a freaked-out mayors', city-by-city municipal overreaction against mess in the parks and cranky campers. As the puzzle pieces fit together, they began to show coordination against OWS at the highest national levels.
Why this massive mobilisation against these not-yet-fully-articulated, unarmed, inchoate people? After all, protesters against the war in Iraq, Tea Party rallies and others have all proceeded without this coordinated crackdown. Is it really the camping? As I write, two hundred young people, with sleeping bags, suitcases and even folding chairs, are still camping out all night and day outside of NBC on public sidewalks – under the benevolent eye of an NYPD cop – awaiting Saturday Night Live tickets, so surely the camping is not the issue. I was still deeply puzzled as to why OWS, this hapless, hopeful band, would call out a violent federal response.
That is, until I found out what it was that OWS actually wanted.
The mainstream media was declaring continually "OWS has no message". Frustrated, I simply asked them. I began soliciting online "What is it you want?" answers from Occupy. In the first 15 minutes, I received 100 answers. These were truly eye-opening.
The No 1 agenda item: get the money out of politics. Most often cited was legislation to blunt the effect of the Citizens United ruling, which lets boundless sums enter the campaign process. No 2: reform the banking system to prevent fraud and manipulation, with the most frequent item being to restore the Glass-Steagall Act – the Depression-era law, done away with by President Clinton, that separates investment banks from commercial banks. This law would correct the conditions for the recent crisis, as investment banks could not take risks for profit that create kale derivatives out of thin air, and wipe out the commercial and savings banks.
No 3 was the most clarifying: draft laws against the little-known loophole that currently allows members of Congress to pass legislation affecting Delaware-based corporations in which they themselves are investors.
When I saw this list – and especially the last agenda item – the scales fell from my eyes. Of course, these unarmed people would be having the shit kicked out of them.
For the terrible insight to take away from news that the Department of Homeland Security coordinated a violent crackdown is that the DHS does not freelance. The DHS cannot say, on its own initiative, "we are going after these scruffy hippies". Rather, DHS is answerable up a chain of command: first, to New York Representative Peter King, head of the House homeland security subcommittee, who naturally is influenced by his fellow congressmen and women's wishes and interests. And the DHS answers directly, above King, to the president (who was conveniently in Australia at the time).
In other words, for the DHS to be on a call with mayors, the logic of its chain of command and accountability implies that congressional overseers, with the blessing of the White House, told the DHS to authorise mayors to order their police forces – pumped up with millions of dollars of hardware and training from the DHS – to make war on peaceful citizens.
But wait: why on earth would Congress advise violent militarised reactions against its own peaceful constituents? The answer is straightforward: in recent years, members of Congress have started entering the system as members of the middle class (or upper middle class) – but they are leaving DC privy to vast personal wealth, as we see from the "scandal" of presidential contender Newt Gingrich's having been paid $1.8m for a few hours' "consulting" to special interests. The inflated fees to lawmakers who turn lobbyists are common knowledge, but the notion that congressmen and women are legislating their own companies' profitsis less widely known – and if the books were to be opened, they would surely reveal corruption on a Wall Street spectrum. Indeed, we do already know that congresspeople are massively profiting from trading on non-public information they have on companies about which they are legislating – a form of insider trading that sent Martha Stewart to jail.
Since Occupy is heavily surveilled and infiltrated, it is likely that the DHS and police informers are aware, before Occupy itself is, what its emerging agenda is going to look like. If legislating away lobbyists' privileges to earn boundless fees once they are close to the legislative process, reforming the banks so they can't suck money out of fake derivatives products, and, most critically, opening the books on a system that allowed members of Congress to profit personally – and immensely – from their own legislation, are two beats away from the grasp of an electorally organised Occupy movement … well, you will call out the troops on stopping that advance.
So, when you connect the dots, properly understood, what happened this week is the first battle in a civil war; a civil war in which, for now, only one side is choosing violence. It is a battle in which members of Congress, with the collusion of the American president, sent violent, organised suppression against the people they are supposed to represent. Occupy has touched the third rail: personal congressional profits streams. Even though they are, as yet, unaware of what the implications of their movement are, those threatened by the stirrings of their dreams of reform are not.
Sadly, Americans this week have come one step closer to being true brothers and sisters of the protesters in Tahrir Square. Like them, our own national leaders, who likely see their own personal wealth under threat from transparency and reform, are now making war upon us."

Succinct and accurate, I'm sad to say...

Not too late to hear eight!

2011-11-28T21:48:00.000-05:00

Some folks are still telling me that they don't get what us OWSers are looking for... So here's eight simple requests that we'd like the U.S. to get busy on:

Tax Wall Street for gambling with our money. Pass the financial speculation tax.
Support education. Put teachers back in classrooms and ease the crippling burden of student debt.
Keep working families in their homes. Pass a mortgage relief plan that puts the needs of homeowners above the greed of mortgage bankers.
End too big to fail. Rein in the big banks NOW and hold the people who caused the financial crisis accountable.

Fair share of taxes from the 1%. End the Bush tax cuts for the 1% and close corporate tax loopholes.
Businesses should invest in jobs. Corporations must stop sitting on their profits and start hiring again here in America.
Extend unemployment insurance. Millions of Americans are still out of work, and unemployment insurance is a vital lifeline.

End corporate control of our democracy. Abolish "corporate personhood" and restore full voting rights to real people.

Simple enough, no? What a great change if even some of these requests were taken seriously by the 1%!!

A prayer from St. Francis of Assisi

2011-11-24T12:36:00.000-05:00

This is one of my favorite prayers from St. Francis, particularly appropriate for the Thanksgiving holiday:

"Praised be You my Lord with all Your creatures,
especially Sir Brother Sun,
Who is the day through whom You give us light.
And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendour,
Of You Most High, he bears the likeness.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars,
In the heavens you have made them bright, precious and fair.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air,
And fair and stormy, all weather's moods,
by which You cherish all that You have made.

Praised be You my Lord through Sister Water,
So useful, humble, precious and pure.

Praised be You my Lord through Brother Fire,
through whom You light the night and he is beautiful and playful and robust and strong.

Praised be You my Lord through our Sister,
Mother Earth
who sustains and governs us,
producing varied fruits with coloured flowers and herbs.
Praise be You my Lord through those who grant pardon for love of You and bear sickness and trial.

Blessed are those who endure in peace, By You Most High, they will be crowned."

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Marching from New York to D.C.: Almost there!!

2011-11-22T10:57:00.000-05:00

This video should lift Leftsiders' spirits:

http://youtu.be/VMXivoUH01g

A simple picture of the problem

2011-11-20T15:51:00.000-05:00

Some of the more thoughtful 1%ers who have ambled by Zuccotti in recent weeks have asked us what drives us 99%ers to occupy their world. Well MarkSumner at DKos this morning has the answer:

"No doubt you've seen many charts over the last few months breaking down income inequality in the United States. However, looking at the way money moves through the system, doesn't really capture how badly askew our nation really is; how fragile it is, and how few people really hold the controls.

Instead of looking at income, let's take a look at a broader measure of fiscal inequality. Let's look at wealth.

Wealth rolls together a number of items. It's the cash you have in the bank, the savings bonds gathering dust in a drawer, the stocks and bonds that make up your 401k. For the better off, it's corporate bonds, municipal bonds, foreign bonds and other instruments. It's your pension, if you have one. It's the stock your corporation gives you to stick around because you're such a valuable fellow. It's that vacation home in Florida, that other vacation home outside London, that other vacation home... or maybe the other six. It's the personal ownership you have in a business. It's your family trust.

In short, it's the total of all your net assets, minus the value of your primary residence (be it ever so humble or oh so grand) and your debts. So what does America look like in those terms?

It's a staggeringly uneven distribution, with 42% of the wealth in the hands of 1% of the people. Even so, a chart like this doesn't begin to really capture how lopsided the nation really is.

Let's take a look at one of those 80-percenters.

Seems like a nice, non-assuming little American, eh? As it turns out, the wealth of this average Joe or Joanne is about... $30,000. That's everything they own, everything they have to sell, outside of their house. Hey, it could be worse. The wealth controlled by the average black American is about $500.

Now let's look at the next 10% of Americans. From the chart above, you might think that this American has a bit more than those below, but remember there are 1/8 as many people in this group controlling 57% more wealth. What it really looks like is this:

Whoa! Careful there, 80-90 percenter. You might step on one of those little folks. See, the average person in the next 10% doesn't control just 4% more wealth. Each person in this group controls over eleven times as much. And that's only the start of this trip to the top of the plutosphere. Here's the next five percent.

Each person in the 90-95% bracket controls more than twice as much wealth as those in the 80-90% bracket, and 25 times the wealth of the folks we saw first. And of course, we're still far from the top.

The folks between the 96 and 99% lines might control 29% of the wealth, but that doesn't mean they have four times the wealth of the folks in the bottom 80%. Actually, they have over 80x as much wealth. Is it getting hard to see the average American in this chart? You bet it is. Your elected representatives have the same problem. Hang on, it's going to get worse.

There. That's what America really looks like. That's how it looks to elected officials who scramble for campaign cash. Oh, they know you're down there. Every few years they get out a microscope and reach down to pet your tiny, tiny head. But mostly everything you say just fades into a faint whine, drowned out by the basso profundo rumble of the 1%. Horton may have cared about the Whos, but Horton is not the kind of elephant you find in politics.

That's how America looks to corporations and organizations who are piloted by these Godzillas of the 1%. Why should they be bothered if their massive strides should squash a few ants in passing? What difference does it make if their corporate colony gets its ants from China, or Cambodia, or wherever is cheap this week, rather than American ants? The 1% measure value by wealth, and the ants don't have any. You put all the ants together, and they still can't match even the beetles that live at the 90% mark. Actually, ants are bit of an exaggeration. You know those tiny black ants that try to invade your kitchen in the spring? Compared to the fiscal titans of the 1%, you're not that big. Think more along the lines of dust mite.

The top one percent have 38% of stock. They control 62% of the interest in private business. Expand that to the top 10% — those hamsters at the big guy's feet — and you have more than 80% of stock, more than 80% of bonds, trusts, and every other fiscal instrument. Over 75% of the non-residential real estate. You know what's really scary? Even within the one percent things are heavily weighted toward a very few in the top 1% of the 1%. I'd draw them, but the image wouldn't fit on the screen.

The "ownership society" exists. You're just not part of it.

There's only one place where the ants are supposed to be as tall as the giants — in the ballot box. That's where the average person should be able to generate pressure that keeps this from being a nation of, by, and for Godzilla. Of course, it's not quite that simple.

When Onepercentus rex and friends control the message that the ants hear on their radios and see on their TVs, it's easy to get confused. When the beetles of the legislature determine that the only way to get fresh food for the giants is by taking it from the ants, it's easy to feel as if being stepped on might be a relief.

And as long as giants...

The hell with metaphors. As long as corporations are people and money is speech, then democracy is a farce. If you want to live like a person and not an ant, that has to change."

And now let's pause for a message from our sponsor...

2011-11-18T15:35:00.000-05:00

Open your eyes to see, and your ears to listen:

http://youtu.be/2LtUKYIylig

2nd coolest thing last night (after the hip-hop music in the square)

2011-11-18T15:23:00.000-05:00

The police copters weren;t able to find and stop our guerilla projectionist! Everyone driving over the bridge into Manhattan could read our stuff. Many cars honked and gave us on the bridge a big thumbs up! Check out the video:

http://youtu.be/CxG4g62rnd8

No comment necessary

2011-11-18T12:05:00.002-05:00

Benito Bloomberg's goons at work:

http://youtu.be/wZyU-h9UqLM

The rest of the day was a lot more fun...

2011-11-18T12:00:00.000-05:00

Having escaped the Paddy wagon, I was free to enjoy the rest of the day's events. The NYPD estimated the crowd at Foley Square to have been about 32,000 people-- that seems about right according to what I saw on the square and the bridge. http://youtu.be/fqQv3sZIUvQ All in all, a good day for OWS... the hip-hop performers at Foley Square was the high point for me!! Great bass player!

Here's what yesterday morning was like for me

2011-11-18T11:48:00.001-05:00

Check this out: http://youtu.be/WUxiAv5TjsQ I was lucky not to get arrested after I told the cop who whacked me twice with a baton that I had memorized his badge #. Two other cops tried to grab me, but I ran like the dickens and got away from those out of shape donut-munchers, LOL. We're really into fascist police thug tactics under the regime of Hizzoner Benito Bloomberg here in NYC...

True Compassion Comforts the Afflicted of OWS

2011-11-16T20:06:00.000-05:00

Not all the news here in Gotham City is dire... this true story of concern and caring is truly heartwarming:

The sanctuary of Middle Collegiate Church in the East Village. (Facebook/Middle Collegiate Church)

By Amy Zimmer and Tom Liddy
DNAinfo Staff
MANHATTAN — Churches around the borough were opening their doors Tuesday night to Occupy Wall Street protesters — who were left without a place to sleep after police cleared out Zuccotti Park hours earlier.
Among those taking in the anti-greed protesters, who first established a camp in Lower Manhattan on Sept. 17, was Middle Collegiate Church in the East Village, which said Tuesday night it could accommodate about 75 protesters.
"This is what we do," said Jacqui Lewis, senior minister at the East 7th Street house of worship. "It's not new to us."

A sign at Zuccotti Park tells protesters how to get to the Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew on the Upper West Side for shelter on Nov. 15, 2011. (DNAinfo/Ben Fractenberg)

Lewis said that those who seek shelter could expect a safe, comfortable place to sleep as well as pizza Tuesday evening and bagels in the morning.
"We're going to try to recharge their batteries," she said. "The Gospels have such a clear mandate for how we’re supposed to treat one another."
As of 10:30 p.m., about 10 people had taken advantage of the offer, including a man who had been homeless for six years.
"He said, 'The system is lousy. I hope for a place where people share what they have like you share with us'," Lewis recounted the man saying.
As for the future, she said that the hope is that Occupiers will be allowed to have their tents and sleeping gear back so that they can continue their work.
On the Upper West Side, the Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew on West 86th Street said that about 50 protesters were expected to spend the night.
"We’re doing it because that's what a church is supposed to do," said Giovanny Mondesir, assistant building manager for the house of worship.
He said that the church had received a list of protesters who planned to spend the night and would close its doors around midnight.
"It’s really not comfortable," said Mondesir of the protesters being evicted from their Lower Manhattan encampment, near the World Trade Center. "They’re trying to do something great for all of us and they're being kicked out."
The church, he said, would offer the protesters sandwiches and likely rice as nourishment during their stay.
"We’ve been getting a lot of positive remarks, especially about our reverend [James Karpen]," who came up with the idea to house the demonstrators, Mondesir added.

Read more: http://www.dnainfo.com/20111115/downtown/churches-open-doors-occupy-wall-street-protesters#ixzz1dv6qHeHK

Tambershall's cri de coeur

2011-11-15T13:58:00.002-05:00

Here's a first response to the little coordinated crackdown against us peaceful occupiers, here in the Big Apple and in other U.S. cities, published by Tambershall at FDL today:

The 1st amendment is still around right? The Patriot Act, or some top secret act we don’t even know about, didn’t delete the 1st amendment from the Constitution did it? I didn’t miss a memo did I? I didn’t miss the vote by all the states to modify the Constitution so the part that says, “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”, was deleted/removed?

So then is the coordination by American mayors to prevent peaceable protest across America is … is this collusion?

Can some people here with legal backgrounds or legal know-how explain this to me? Can’t the ACLU just file a “the Constitution allows it so go F yourself” brief?

Sure there’s the whole public vs. private property issue, but what happens when this sock-puppet of a government sells off all public lands into the hands of the “innovators” and “job creators”, as they are currently doing? Does that mean that all private land represents a line where we no longer have constitutional rights? So all the other amendments don’t count either on private property? The Constitution has no effect on private property? Do laws no longer apply on private property? Anyone with private property can set up their own laws and their own Constitution on that property?

“I was recently on a conference call with 18 cities across the country who had the same situation,” says Quan

These are the times I wish we still had journalists. If we did they would be required to ask the mayor, and the mayor at every Occupy, details about that call. How about

“What did you talk about during that call?” What are the details?

“Who else was on that call?” “Was there anyone, who’s not a mayor on that call?” “Was it only public officials, or where there non-public officials present?”

“What was said, ie. the transcript?” And if no transcript, “Since this was on the public’s dime, and concerning the public, why isn’t there a transcript?” “At this public-concerning call, where there any public representatives, and if not, why not?” “Have the mayors committed and ethical or legal violation of their duties by this action?” “By planning this across many cities, crossing state lines, are there any legal concerns for the mayors?”

This is off the top of my head. I suggest, as others have, that since journalism is dead (replaced by the corporate media and corporatist pawns), we call each mayor’s office and ask these questions.

There is still a facade of Democracy, right? So under this facade, don’t they have to respond? And if they don’t, can we finally admit the facade is also dead?

A way out of this mess?

2011-11-12T12:54:00.000-05:00

Here's a beautfully written piece by Ellen Brown, from yesterday's Truthout:

"Henry Ford said, "It is well enough that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning."

We are beginning to understand, and Occupy Wall Street looks like the beginning of the revolution.

We are beginning to understand that our money is created, not by the government, but by banks. Many authorities have confirmed this, including the Federal Reserve itself. The only money the government creates today are coins, which compose less than one ten-thousandth of the money supply. Federal Reserve Notes, or dollar bills, are issued by Federal Reserve banks, all 12 of which are owned by the private banks in their district. Most of our money comes into circulation as bank loans, and it comes with an interest charge attached.

According to Margrit Kennedy, a German researcher who has studied this issue extensively, interest now composes 40 percent of the cost of everything we buy. We don't see it on the sales slips, but interest is exacted at every stage of production. Suppliers need to take out loans to pay for labor and materials before they have a product to sell.

For government projects, Kennedy found that the average cost of interest is 50 percent. If the government owned the banks, it could keep the interest and get these projects at half price. That means governments - state and federal - could double the number of projects they could afford, without costing the taxpayers a single penny more than we are paying now.

This opens up exciting possibilities. Federal and state governments could fund all sorts of things we think we can't afford now, simply by owning their own banks. They could fund something Franklin D. Roosevelt and Martin Luther King dreamt of - an Economic Bill of Rights.

A Vision for Tomorrow

In his first inaugural address in 1933, Roosevelt criticized the sort of near-sighted Wall Street greed that precipitated the Great Depression. He said, "They only know the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and where there is no vision the people perish."

Roosevelt's own vision reached its sharpest focus in 1944, when he called for a Second Bill of Rights. He said:

This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights.... They were our rights to life and liberty.

As our nation has grown in size and stature, however - as our industrial economy expanded - these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.

He then enumerated the economic rights he thought needed to be added to the Bill of Rights. They included:

The right to a job;

The right to earn enough to pay for food and clothing;

The right of businessmen to be free of unfair competition and domination by monopolies;

The right to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

Times have changed since the first Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution in 1791. When the country was founded, people could stake out some land, build a house on it, farm it and be self-sufficient. The Great Depression saw people turned out of their homes and living in the streets - a phenomenon we are seeing again today. Few people now own their own homes. Even if you have signed a mortgage, you will be in debt peonage to the bank for 30 years or so before you can claim the home as your own.

Health needs have changed, too. In 1791, foods were natural and nutrient rich, and outdoor exercise was built into the lifestyle. Degenerative diseases such as cancer and heart disease were rare. Today, health insurance for some people can cost as much as rent.

Then there are college loans, which collectively now exceed a trillion dollars, more even than credit card debt. Students are coming out of universities not just without jobs, but carrying a debt of $20,000 or so on their backs. For medical students and other post-graduate students, it can be $100,000 or more. Again, that's as much as a mortgage, with no house to show for it. The justification for incurring these debts was supposed to be that the students would get better jobs when they graduated, but now jobs are scarce.

After World War II, the GI Bill provided returning servicemen with free college tuition, as well as cheap home loans and business loans. It was called "the GI Bill of Rights." Studies have shown that the GI Bill paid for itself seven times over and is one of the most lucrative investments the government ever made.

The government could do that again - without increasing taxes or the federal debt. It could do it by recovering the power to create money from Wall Street and the financial services industry, which now claim a whopping 40 percent of everything we buy.

An Updated Constitution for a New Millennium

Banks acquired the power to create money by default when Congress declined to claim it at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. The Constitution says only that "Congress shall have the power to coin money [and] regulate the power thereof." The founders left out not just paper money, but checkbook money, credit card money, money market funds, and other forms of exchange that make up the money supply today. All of them are created by private financial institutions, and they all come into the economy as loans with interest attached.

Governments - state and federal - could bypass the interest tab by setting up their own publicly owned banks. Banking would become a public utility, a tool for promoting productivity and trade rather than for extracting wealth from the debtor class.

Congress could go further: it could reclaim the power to issue money from the banks and fund its budget directly. It could do this, in fact, without changing any laws. Congress is empowered to "coin money," and the Constitution sets no limit on the face amount of the coins. Congress could issue a few one-trillion dollar coins, deposit them in an account and start writing checks.

The Fed's own figures show that the money supply has shrunk by $3 trillion since 2008. That sum could be spent into the economy without inflating prices. Three trillion dollars could go a long way toward providing the jobs and social services necessary to fulfill an Economic Bill of Rights. Guaranteeing employment to anyone willing and able to work would increase gross domestic product, allowing the money supply to expand even further without inflating prices, since supply and demand would increase together.

Modernizing the Bill of Rights

As Bob Dylan said, "The times they are a-changin'." Revolutionary times call for revolutionary solutions and an updated social contract. Apple and Microsoft update their programs every year. We are trying to fit a highly complex, modern monetary scheme into a constitutional framework that is 200 years old.

After President Roosevelt died in 1945, his vision for an Economic Bill of Rights was kept alive by Martin Luther King. "True compassion," King declared, "is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring."

King, too, has now passed away, but his vision has been carried on by a variety of money reform groups. The government as "employer of last resort," guaranteeing a living wage to anyone who wants to work, is a basic platform of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). An MMT web site declares that by "[e]nding the enormous unearned profits acquired by the means of the privatization of our sovereign currency ... [i]t is possible to have truly full employment without causing inflation."

What was sufficient for a simple agrarian economy does not provide an adequate framework for freedom and democracy today. We need an Economic Bill of Rights, and we need to end the privatization of the national currency. Only when the privilege of creating the national money supply is returned to the people can we have a government that is truly of the people, by the people and for the people."

Disgraceful Disparity

2011-11-10T22:28:00.000-05:00

Princeton sociologist Devah Pager shares the disturbing results of her recent investigation:

In these experiments, which took place in Milwaukee and New York City, I hired young men to pose as job applicants, assigning them resumes with equal levels of education and experience, and sending them to apply for real entry-level job openings all over the city. Team members also alternated presenting information about a fictitious criminal record (a drug felony), which they “fessed up to” on the application form. During nearly a year of fieldwork, teams of testers audited hundreds of employers, applying for a wide range of entry level jobs such as waiters, sales assistants, laborers, warehouse workers, couriers, and customer service representatives.
The results of these studies were startling. Among those with no criminal record, white applicants were more than twice as likely to receive a callback relative to equally qualified black applicants. Even more troubling, whites with a felony conviction fared just as well, if not better, than a black applicant with a clean background.
Racial disparities have been documented in many contexts, but here, comparing the two job applicants side by side, we are confronted with a troubling reality: Being black in America today is just about the same as having a felony conviction in terms of one’s chances of finding a job.
The young black men posing as job applicants in this study were bright college kids, models of discipline and hard work; and yet, even in this best case scenario, these applicants were routinely overlooked simply on the basis of the color of their skin. The results of this study suggest that black men must work at least twice as hard as equally qualified whites simply to overcome the stigma of their skin color.

This study was conducted just before the great financial meltdown of 2008. I highly doubt that the situation has improved in this time of very high unemployment. I can remember my disgust as a young man when I saw overt displays of racism. In the following decades we have made some progress, yet there is still so much to do. I'm sure a lot of these hiring managers don't think of themselves as racist. They would be quick to denounce the KKK or other hate groups. Yet the impact of their prejudice is as harmful as shouting vulgar epithets. Many African Americans have overcome great obstacles to finding employment and to advancing in their careers. It is horribly unfair that anyone should have to start out with such an oppressive disadvantage.

Robert Reich hits the nail on the head

2011-11-08T17:27:00.000-05:00

Here's my favorite Clinton cabinet member's take on OWS, that he published over at HuffPost:

"A combination of police crackdowns and bad weather are testing the young Occupy movement. But rumors of its demise are premature, to say the least. Although numbers are hard to come by, anecdotal evidence suggests the movement is growing.

As importantly, the movement has already changed the public debate in America.

Consider, for example, last week's Congressional Budget Office report on widening disparities of income in America. It was hardly news -- it's already well known that the top 1 percent now gets 20 percent of the nation's income, up from 9 percent in the late 1970s.

But it's the first time such news made the front page of the nation's major newspapers.

Why? Because for the first time in more than half a century, a broad cross-section of the American public is talking about the concentration of income, wealth, and political power at the top.

Score a big one for the Occupiers.

Even more startling is the change in public opinion. Not since the 1930s has a majority of Americans called for redistribution of income or wealth. But according to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll, an astounding 66 percent of Americans said the nation's wealth should be more evenly distributed.

A similar majority believes the rich should pay more in taxes. According to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, even a majority of people who describe themselves as Republicans believe taxes should be increased on the rich.

I remember the days when even raising the subject of inequality made you a "class warrior." Now, it seems, most Americans have become class warriors.

And they blame Republicans for stacking the deck in favor of the rich. On that New York Times/CBS News poll, 69 percent of respondents said Republican policies favor the rich (28 percent said the same of Obama's policies).

The old view was anyone could make it in America with enough guts and gumption. We believed in the self-made man (or, more recently, woman) who rose from rags to riches -- inventors and entrepreneurs born into poverty, like Benjamin Franklin; generations of young men from humble beginnings who grew up to became president, like Abe Lincoln. We loved the novellas of Horatio Alger, and their more modern equivalents -- stories that proved the American dream was open to anyone who worked hard.

In that old view, being rich was proof of hard work, and lack of money proof of indolence or worse. As Herman Cain still says "if you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself."

But Cain's line isn't hitting a responsive chord. In fact, he's backtracked from it (along with much of the rest of what he's said).

A profound change has come over America. Guts, gumption, and hard work don't seem to pay off as they once did -- or at least as they did in our national morality play. Instead, the game seems rigged in favor of people who are already rich and powerful -- as well as their children.

Instead of lionizing the rich, we're beginning to suspect they gained their wealth by ripping us off.

Mitt Romney is defensive about his vast wealth (reputed to total a quarter of a billion). He's reverted to scolding his audiences on the campaign trail for "attacking people based on heir success."

The old view was also that great wealth trickled downward -- that the rich made investments in jobs and growth that benefitted all of us. So even if we doubted we'd be wealthy, we still gained from the fortunes made by a few.

But that view, too, has lost its sheen. Nothing has trickled down. The rich have become far richer over the last three decades but the rest of us haven't. In fact, median incomes are dropping.

Wall Street moguls are doing better than ever -- after having been bailed out by the rest of us. But the rest of us are doing worse. CEOs are hauling in more than 300 times the pay of average workers (up from 40 times the pay only three decades ago), as average workers lose jobs, wages, and benefits.

Instead of investing in jobs and growth, the super rich are putting their money into gold or Treasury bills, or investing it in Brazil or South Asia or anywhere else it can reap the highest return.

Meanwhile, it's dawning on Americans that in the real economy (as opposed to the financial one) our spending is vital. And without enough jobs or wages, that spending is drying up.

The economy is in trouble because so much income and wealth have been going to the top that the rest us no longer have the purchasing power to buy the goods and services we would produce at or near full employment.

The jobs depression shows no sign of ending. Personal disposable income, adjusted for inflation, was down 1.7 percent in the third quarter of this year -- the biggest drop since the third quarter of 2009. Housing prices have stalled, home sales are down.

The only reason consumer spending rose in September is because we drew from our meager savings -- mostly in order to pay medical bills, health insurance, and utilities. That's the third month of savings declines, according to the Commerce Department's report last Friday.

This can't and won't continue. Savings are now down to 3.6 percent of personal disposable income, their lowest level since the recession began.

Americans know a rigged game when they see one. They understand how much money is flowing into politics from the super rich, big corporations, and Wall Street --- in order to keep their taxes low and entrench their privileged position.

The Occupy movement is gaining ground because it's hitting a responsive chord. What happens from here on depends on whether other Americans begin to march to the music -- and organize."

You tell 'em, feisty short guy!!

Accepting the Unacceptable

2011-11-07T22:09:00.000-05:00

An alert reader clued me in to an interesting study that has yet to make a big splash in the media. The study, conducted by Cornell's Peter Enns and University of Tennessee's Nathan Kelly, compared attitudes towards progressive taxation and welfare spending in times of higher and lower income inequality.

New research findings add complexity to the basic assumption that humans act in their own economic self-interest. By analyzing hundreds of survey questions from 1952 to 2006, Peter Enns, assistant professor of government, and Nathan Kelly of the University of Tennessee found that as inequality rises, low income individuals' attitudes toward redistribution become more conservative. Their paper appears in the October issue of the American Journal of Political Science.
"It's a bit of a conundrum," Enns admits.
The researchers also examined public opinion data on the question: Should government increase spending on welfare, keep it the same or decrease it? "As inequality rose, the high- and low-income respondents on average become less supportive of spending on welfare," Enns said. "And this is not because low-income people are unaware of inequality; our results show they are more aware of it than most people."
The researchers found that higher levels of household income inequality in the United States generate more conservative public opinion. "We broke down pubic opinion by income group and found the high- and low-income groups responding in a similar way, both becoming more conservative when inequality rises," Enns said. "We were very surprised to observe that the self-reinforcing aspect of inequality holds for high- and low-income groups, and how they move together in parallel over time."
Previous economic models predicted that low-income individuals will consistently support government redistribution. "If anything, when inequality rises, low-income people should become more supportive, and that's not what we observe in the data," said Enns, a member of the Institute for Social Sciences theme project on Judgment, Decision Making, and Social Behavior and faculty director of the Cornell Prison Education Program.
Conversely, when inequality declines, the public becomes more liberal. The public works projects and other social programs following the Great Depression helped promote decades of declining inequality into the 1960s, Enns said. "And then there's a shift," he said. "Once inequality starts going back up, it appears to be perpetuated by public opinion. If inequality declined in the United States, our results suggest that then the public would become more supportive of government redistribution."
Nevertheless, people in the lowest income group favor more redistribution than those in the highest income group.

How can we explain this? Part of it may be simply a reflection of greater conservative domination of media after Reagan's first election. Yet I have another theory. People tend to approach the world with a rational or magical bias. When the reality you observe seems to follow reasonable rules, then it makes sense to apply rational solutions to problems. When the world is way out of balance, then praying for miracles seems the best approach. When your uncle goes to college on the G.I. bill, prospers, and builds a house, then you might feel part of an economic and political system that can work for all. When the Reagan government starts saying that ketchup is a vegetable, and raises payroll taxes while cutting income taxes on the wealthy, then alienation begins. When CEOs, who used to make about 40 times what their workers made, start making more than 400 times an average worker's salary, then lower-income folks see they no longer live in the bosses' world. Capitalism is now obviously an obscure and impenetrable system, lavishing huge rewards on an ever smaller ruling class, while leaving most working folks to fall behind. The mythology of stardom replaces the belief in the Great Society. Rap stars from the projects, country music stars from the farm, these become heroic figures, while making good money as a union shop steward recedes as an impossible dream. Better to buy lottery scratch tickets than study engineering. Who can trust government to do the right thing with our tax dollars? Better to imagine the possibility of sudden, improbable success. In this magical world, the rich will someday take care of the poor without a government middleman, and we'll all live happily ever after. The sad truth is, without any faith that the system cares, then transferring some money from the rich to the government seems futile. Only those of us who still feel connected to the system might worry about making it work better. Sadly, many of the rich and powerful, who could do something about it, seem content to see income inequality get even worse.

How tax havens are killing us...

2011-11-02T14:03:00.000-04:00

Here's Ken Thomas over at dk yesterday:

"When taxes are reduced for one group, government must raise taxes on someone else, run bigger deficits, or cut programs. Tax havens, jurisdictions with strong secrecy provisions and low or zero tax rates, are one way that rich individuals and corporations reduce their tax payments, both legally and illegally. A recent book by Ronen Palan, Richard Murphy, and Christian Chavagneux summarizes the latest work on tax havens and contends that they form a central part of the global economy. Tax Havens: How Globalization Really Works presents data that 30% of multinational corporations' foreign direct investment passes through tax havens like Bermuda, Ireland, or Luxembourg, overwhelmingly for tax purposes. Tax havens, then, are far more central to the global economy than we generally suppose.
How much does this cost average taxpayers? In a separate report, Murphy calculated that wealthy individuals have roughly $11.5 trillion in tax havens, which at a 7.5% rate of return would generate $860 billion in income each year. If, on average, these people faced a 30% marginal tax, that would come to $255 billion annually that the rich avoid in taxes. Needless to say, this is a best guess, since the value of these assets is not disclosed publicly. See his report for more details on how he generated those figures.
That's just individuals. The situation with corporations is murkier still. While corporations set up subsidiaries in tax havens for the obvious purpose of reducing their tax, Palan et al. say there is no solid estimate of the overall cost of these activities. The Government Accountability Office reported in 2008 that of the largest 100 U.S. companies, 86 had subsidiaries abroad, and 83 of these had subsidiaries in tax havens. Bank of America had 115 subsidiaries in tax havens, including 59 in the Cayman Islands. Citigroup had a whopping 427 tax haven subsidiaries, including 91 in Luxembourg and 90 in the Cayman Islands. Goldman Sachs only had 29, 15 in the Cayman Islands.
I mention the Cayman Islands because President Obama has long been a critic of tax havens, saying during the 2008 campaign of Ugland House in the Cayman Islands, "Either this is the largest building in the world or the largest tax scam in the world. And I think the American people know which it is." Palan et al. report that the Caymans are the sixth largest financial center in the world, with $1.9 trillion in assets in December 2007. However, since taking office, the President has not succeeded in passing a version of the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act, which in its original form he co-sponsored with Carl Levin, Norm Coleman, Ken Salazar and Sheldon Whitehouse.
Tax havens could not exist without the financial services industry, which provides the tax lawyers, accountants, and other professionals who make it possible for the rich and corporations to reduce their taxes. Collectively, they and their clients are the 1%. Occupy Wall Street has highlighted the abuses benefiting them, and tax havens are most definitely part of their pattern of abuse. Tax havens have proved amazingly resilient, however, and it will take sustained political pressure to shut them down."

So, Leftsiders... can we start putting some "sustained political pressure" on our elected officials?

Antiquarians and Historians

2011-10-31T11:17:00.000-04:00

Here's the difference between an antiquarian and an historian: the former cares about the past for its own sake, while the latter seeks to understand the present more deeply through knowing about historical developmnets that still shape our world. As an historian, this is what I would say the Ciompi revolt can teach us-- the elite's hold on power is always weak, the masses may seize power whenever they are so inclined. However, elites are like the moles in whack-a-mole: eventually they pop back up, and start screwing things up for the rest of us until we whack 'em again! Peace out, brothers and sisters...

Aftermath of Ciompi Revolt in Florence

2011-10-26T21:24:00.000-04:00

After the Ciompi succeed in seizing power in Florence they find a leader in a wool carder named Michele di Lando. From 1378-1381 Florence is someting of a medieval workers' paradise. In 1381 the elites take back power, but some of the workers' gains are maintained in a power structure that requires the cooperation of the less poweful guilds Forty years later, in the spring of 1424. the Florentines were very unhappy with what they perceived as an unnecessary foreign war. A crushing defeat at Zagonara was especially galling, with an enormous loss of men and money. Heavy new taxes were of course imposed to pay war debts.

Machiavelli tells us that the Florentine councils in 1424 [Florentine Histories, Book IV, chapter 8]

“created twenty citizens to levy a new tax, who, inspired by seeing the powerful citizens depressed by the last defeat, loaded them down without giving them any consideration… [the tax collectors had] authority to be able to kill anyone who might defend himself against the public agents. From this arose many grievous accidents, with the death and wounding of citizens, from which it appeared that the parties [Albizzi v. Medici (allies of Ricci] would come to blood… [the leading citizens] “decided they should all meet again together…

[ IV, 9] Messer Rinaldo degli Albizzi spoke to all. He pointed out the condition of the city and how through their own negligence it had come again under the power of the plebs… He reminded them of the iniquity of the state that had ruled from 1378 to 1381 and how, of all those present, this one’s father and this one’s grandfather had been killed by it; that they were returning to the same dangers and disorders; for already the multitude had levied a tax to suit itself, and very soon, if it were not restrained by greater force or better order, it would create magistrates according to its own arbitrary will. If this should happen, it would seize their places and would wreck the state… Therefore, he declared, it was necessary for everyone who loved his fatherland and his own honor to come to his senses and and remind himself of the virtue of Bardo mancini, who, with the ruin of the Alberti, had got the city out of the dangers it was in then… He concluded, therefore, that he saw only this mode by which to remedy it: restore the state to the great and take away authority from the lesser guilds by reducing them from fourteen to seven. This would make the plebs have less authority in the councils both because their number would be fewer and also because the great, having more authority there, would be unfavorable to them on account of old hostilities… And as for carrying out these things, there was deceit or force to which they could easily have recourse, since some of them as members of the War Council of Ten, could bring men secretly into the city… and there was no other remedy than winning Giovanni de’ Medici over to them. So the commission was given to Messer Rinaldo to go to Giovanni and see if he might attract Giovanni to their judgment…”

As it turned out, Giovanni de’ Medici wasn’t willing to betray the common people, and so the city became openly divided between an elitist faction adhering to the Albizzi, and a more populist faction that favored the Medici family. Eventually the Medici do take advantage of their populist reputation to slowly gain total control over Florence, first under cover of republican forms, and eventually (in the sixteenth century) ruling the city for generations as the dukes of Florence. Indeed, the Medici also marry into the royal House of France, and give the Church three Popes, thus becoming pretty much the most powerful family in early modern Italy.

We'll have a bit more to say about all this next time...

The Ciompi Revolt appears victorious

2011-10-25T21:14:00.000-04:00

Well, Machiavelli tells us (Florentine Histories, Book III, chap. 14), this kind of talk from a rebel leader soon came to the attention of

“the Signori, for they had in their hands one Simone dalla Piazza, from whom they learned the whole conspiracy… when the danger had been seen, they gathered the Collegi… before everyone was together, night had already come. By these men the Signori (leading city officials) were advised that they should have the consuls of the guilds come, who then all advised that all the men-at-arms in Florence should come and that the Gonfaloniers (Standard-Bearers) of the people should be in the piazza (plaza) in the morning with their armed companies. While Simone was being tortured and the citizens were gathering, the palace clock was being regulated by one Niccolò da San Friano. As Niccolò became aware of what was happening, he returned to his home and filled all his neighborhood with tumult so that in an instant more than a thousand armed men gathered in the Piazza Santo Spirito. This uproar reached the other conspirators, and [the churches of] San Piero Maggiore and San Lorenzo, the places designated by them, were filled with armed men.
… in the piazza not more than eighty armed men in favor of the Signori had appeared; not one of the Gonfaloniers had come because, having heard that the whole city was filled with armed men, they feared to leave their homes. The first of the “plebs” (Ciompi ) to be in the piazza were those who had gathered at San Piero Maggiore, and at their arrival the armed men did not move. After these appeared another armed crowd, and, finding no opposition, with terrible cries they demanded their prisoners… and so as to have the prisoners by force since they had not been given up by threats, they burned the houses of Luigi Guicciardini: so the Signori gave them over for fear of worse… This tumult lasted the whole day; and when night came, the Ciompi stopped at the palace of Messer Stefano behind the Church of San Barnaba. They numbered more than six thousand; and before day came, with their threats they compelled the guilds to send them their ensigns. Then when morning came, with the Standard of Justice they went to the palace of the chief Justice (Podestà); and as the Podestà [always a very distinguished judge from another city—Ulysses] refused to give them possession of it, they fought for it and won.”

So, now the lowest-paid wool workers have seized control of the city! What will they do with their newfound power? Stay tuned…

Ciompi Revolt: Florence, 1378

2011-10-23T15:35:00.000-04:00

So, Machiavelli puts us at the scene in the spring of 1378, when the Albizzi faction in Florence hesitates to use force to put down a workers' revolt that aims to put the elite families who dominate the Parte Guelfa out of business.

The spark that ignites the flame of revolution in Florence is the stirring resignation speech of one Salvestro de'Medici, a wealthy man who was sympathetic to the demands of the Ciompi (unskilled wool workers). Powerful men are killed, and many houses are burned. After some days of unrest, many of the rebels are ready to stop and ask for mercy from the authorities. But one intelligent leader has another plan:

"If we had to deliberate now whether to take up arms, to burn and rob the homes of the citizens, to despoil churches, I would be one of those who would judge it was a course to think over, and perhaps I would agree to put quiet poverty ahead of perilous gain. But because arms have been taken up and many evils have been done, it appears to me that one must reason that arms must not be put aside and that we must consider how we can secure ourselves from the evils that have been committed... You see the whole city full of grievance and hatred against us: the citizens meet together; the Signoria is always on the side of the magistrates. You should believe that traps are being set for us and that new forces are being prepared against our strongholds. We must therefore seek two things, and we must have two ends in our deliberations: one is to make it impossible for us to be punished for the things we have done in recent days, and the other is to be able to live with more freedom and more satisfaction than we have in the past... If we wish that our old errors be forgiven us, [we need] to make new ones, reoubling the evils, multiplying the arson and robbery-- and to contrive to have many companions in this, because when many err, no one is punished, and though small faults are punished, great and grave ones are rewarded." (Florentine Histories, III, 13) to be continued...

We'll have more to say about all this soon-- I hope that Leftsiders are enjoying the words of Niccolo Machiavelli!!

Actor Billy Baldwin supports Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-20T16:31:00.001-04:00

Thomas Paine still speaks to us today

2011-10-13T17:18:00.000-04:00

Here's a comment made by one of the American Revolution's heroes, Thomas Paine, in an essay advocating the imposition of an estate tax in post-Revolutionary France-- to fund substantial benefits to those of modest means:

Separate an individual from society, and give him an island or a continent to possess, and he cannot acquire personal property. He cannot be rich. So inseparably are the means connected with the end, in all cases, that where the former do not exist the latter cannot be obtained. All accumulation, therefore, of personal property, beyond what a man's own hands produce, is derived to him by living in society; and he owes on every principle of justice, of gratitude, and of civilization, a part of that accumulation back again to society from whence the whole came.
This is putting the matter on a general principle, and perhaps it is best to do so; for if we examine the case minutely it will be found that the accumulation of personal property is, in many instances, the effect of paying too little for the labor that produced it; the consequence of which is that the working hand perishes in old age, and the employer abounds in affluence.

It is a sign of how little progress we've really made that now, more than 200 years later, these words of one of our founding fathers still fall on deaf ears. 21st century politicians, who denounce taxes on the wealthy as "confiscatory," or, "punishing success," represent an ancient, greedy point of view. This outlook survived the American, French, and Russian revolutions. Yet the clear logic and good moral sense of Paine's position still retains its power as well.

We must continue to press the case, as Paul Krugman does so well, that trickle-down policies weaken our economy. But we also shouldn't be afraid to follow Paine-- in calling for restoring the principles of justice, gratitude, and civilization that are essential to any decent society. Helping the middle class and poor will not only stimulate demand, it will restore a sense of self-respect in all Americans.

Machiavelli's class analysis of the ancient Roman and medieval Florentine republics

2011-10-11T20:28:00.002-04:00

So here's Niccolo Machiavelli (Florentine Histories, Book III, chapter 1)on the different results of class struggle in Rome and Florence:

"The grave and natural enmities that exist between the men of the people and the nobles, caused by the wish of the latter to command and the former not to obey, are the cause of all evils that arise in cities. For from this diversity of humors all other things that agitate republics take their nourishment. This kept Rome disunited, and this, if it is permissible to compare little things with great, has kept Florence divided... For the enmities between the people and the nobles at the beginning of Rome that were resolved by disputing were resolved in Florence by fighting. Those in Rome ended with a law, those in Florence with the exile and death of many citizens... for the people of Rome desired to enjoy the highest honors together with the nobles, while the people nof Florence fought to be alone in the government without the participation of the nobles. And because the desire of the Roman people was more reasonable... the nobility would yield easily and without resorting to arms. Thus, after some differences, they would come together to create a law whereby the people would be satisfied and the nobles retain their dignities... the desire of the florentine people was injurious and unjust, so that the nobility readied greater forces for its own defense, and that is why it came to the blood and exile of citizens... in the victories of the people the city of Rome became more virtuous, for as men of the people could be placed in the administration of the magistracies, the armies, and the posts of empire together with the nobles... but in Florence, when the people conquered, the nobles were left deprived of the magistracies, and if they wanted to regain them, it was necessary for them not only to be but to appear similar to men of the people in their conduct, spirit,and mode of living."

O.K. Leftsiders, let's chew on that for a moment... we'll be back tomorrow with some ideas on how these general ideas about class conflict will shape Machiavelli's whole historical understanding of the Ciompi revolt in Florence.

Alan Grayson on Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-09T17:12:00.000-04:00

World Forum

2011-10-09T16:58:00.000-04:00

Electric energy in the Big Apple

2011-10-09T16:53:00.001-04:00

So the people on the street here in Gotham City are ready for change. When I wear my Jobs with Justice "Stop Corporate Greed" t-shirt, I am peppered with requests from folks who want to know where they can buy one. Hint: not at Walmart!! Even some of the pinstripes in midtown wink and share conspiratorial little grins with me as we pass on the sidewalk. I had one gentleman on 7th Avenue offer me $40 to sell him the shirt off my back. I should talk to the JWJ people, and see if they can't produce some of these treasured items for sale to all the occupiers and sympathizers in town!

People in the U.S. (not just NYC) are pretty much fed up with the status quo. They have no faith in either of the two major parties and the moment is ripe for new parties to emerge. One such party in New York State is known as the "Working Families Party." here's an account from Mathew Cain of the WFP, describing his recent visit to the Wall Street area:

I just got back from the march. The energy was palpable before we even arrived at Foley Square. Taking the subway from the office, it seemed like everyone else in the car was headed to the march.

When we got to the square around 4pm, people were streaming in from all directions. Literally thousands of people. Across the square, several WFP field staff were standing on the steps. For some of the staffers, it was their first time at the square, but for many others they had already spent nights sleeping in the park. Even those who have been there for two weeks or more have not seen their spirits diminished – they’re every bit as committed as they were when they first showed up.

WFP staff in the crowd

During the march, I talked to the people around us, to see what motivated them. There were a lot of students and recent college graduates, worried about loans and job prospects, but there were also climate activists, public health workers, and housing advocates (“Homeless shelters, not tax shelters!”). It’s clear that, while there is no one unifying demand, everyone was brought together out of a desire to see a more equitable society that treats all its members fairly.

Whenever I broke out of the stream to take pictures, it was obvious that it was a big group. A huge group. The street was packed in both directions, as far as I could see, with people holding signs and chanting: “We are the 99%!” “The people, united, will never be defeated!” “Show me what democracy looks like! This is what democracy looks like!” “How do you fix the deficit? End the wars and tax the rich!”

Intensely yet peacefully, we marched from Foley Square to Zuccotti Park, Occupy Wall Street’s home base. The overflow crowd milled about as organizers prepared for the General Assembly, practicing their “people’s mic” – a process where everyone within earshot repeats what the speaker said to spread the word to the edges of the crowd.

As I left to head back to the office close to 8pm, marchers, undiminished, were still pouring into Zuccotti Park.

Here's an idea for all my peeps in the heartland. Why not find a Bank of America Plaza, or similar symbol of corporate greed, to occupy in your hometown? It's fun and good for the soul!

Some historical background for Machiavelli's Florentine Histories

2011-10-08T15:58:00.001-04:00

My medievalist colleagues will no doubt crucify me for the gross over-simplifications that follow. My only excuse is that I want this lesson to be accessible to the educated layperson, even if they haven't been lucky enough to study Italian history.

So-- the Italian world of the late 14th century was very different from today's Italy. Italy was just an ethnic and linguistic concept, a holdover from the ancient Roman times. Major city-states, like Florence, Venice, Naples, and Milan dominated the peninsula, along with the vast territories under Church contol known as the papal states. All of these city-states were forced to pay some sort of homage to larger powers-- either the Holy Roman Empire (the Germanic descendant of Charlemagne's empire), the Church, the French or Spanish monarchies, etc. The Italians who sided with the Church and the French were called Guelphs (Parte Guelfa in Florence), while those who sided with the emperors were usually known as Ghibellines. Milan was traditionally a Ghibelline stronghold, while Florence was usually firmly inside the Guelph camp.

The Ghibelline faction favored the domination of society by noble familes who held titles like: count, baron, marchese, etc. While many Italian nobles were Guelphs, the Guelphs generally favored sharing political power with the merchant classes and the skilled artisans (butchers, bakers, jewellers, etc.) Indeed, the city government of Florence was basically a "guild republic". This means that you could only enjoy political power if you belonged to a sort of union. University professors, butchers, merchants, lawyers, doctors-- everybody was in the union (Arte). The wealthier unions (like the merchants) naturally dominated city hall. Yet the less powerful artisans (organized in the Arti Minori or "Lesser Guilds") did enjoy some rights of expression and participation in public affairs.

The next passage we'll read from Machiavelli concerns his general ideas on how divisions, between rich and poor, tended to polarize and harm the city of Florence. Powerful families like the Albizzi and Ricci always tried to exploit these divisions for their own ends. We'll wait for tomorrow to read those few paragraphs!! Ciao for now!

Bernie Sanders "What This Is Called Is Socialism For The Rich!"

2011-10-08T15:29:00.000-04:00

Occupy Wall Street hits the world stage

2011-10-07T16:57:00.001-04:00

First lesson taught at the Emily Higgins Ginet New School for Troublemakers and Malcontents

2011-10-06T21:52:00.002-04:00

O.K. later we'll talk more about how this school will operate. First, though, I want to give away the first part of a mini-course on the Ciompi (unskilled wool workers) revolt in late 14th century Florence, for free, to all readers of this blog. This revolt is considered to be the first revolt of industrial workers in the Western world. Our primary source tonight is Laura Banfield and Harvey Mansfield's translation of Niccolo Machiavelli's Florentine Histories, Book III, Chapter 2:

"The power of the nobles having been tamed and the war with the archbishop of Milan ended, it appeared that no cause of scandal remained in Florence. But the evil fortune of our city and its own orders, which were not good, gave rise to enmity between the family of the Albizzi and that of the Ricci just as at first that between the Boundelmonti and the Uberti and afterwards that between the Donati and the Cerchi had done.... These families were full of hatred for each other, and each was thinking how it could crush the other so as to obtain primacy in the republic. They had not yet, however, come to arms but had only encountered each other in the magistracies and in the councils. Thus when the city found itself armed, a quarrel arose by chance in the Mercato Vecchio [Old Market]; and many people gathered, as they are wont to do in such unforeseen events..."

I know... you're saying: "Ulysses how are we supposed to make any sense of this stuff?!?? Give us a break!!"

I'll be giving you a break by filling in the historical context soon. For tonight, though, let's just observe a few general points from this short passage.

How did Machiavelli conceive of local city politics in medieval Florence? In these lines we find important clues as to his historical thinking.

The organizing principle that Machiavelli applies to interpreting medieval Florentine history is the same as that he used to analyze the politics of his own time. The key driver of events is the vendetta, or family feud.

Politics to Machiavelli is a lot like how many of us remember junior high-- cliques and factions always at odds, with the vague menace of violence ready to erupt at any time. In this instance it is the Albizzi and the Ricci squaring off against each other, But Machiavelli's Histories are full of countless rivalries involving dozens of powerful families.

How to think of this in modern terms? It would be a mistake to think of Kennedys and Bushes. Closer to the mark would be the Genovese, Gambino, Buonnano, Lucchese, and Colombo of New York. Politics and violence served up on the same platter. We'll read and analyze a little more tomorrow, Leftsiders. Hope y'all think this is fun!

Keith Olbermann Reads The Statement Released By The Wall Street Proteste...

2011-10-06T21:13:00.000-04:00

New Online School

2011-10-05T18:20:00.000-04:00

When Ezra Cornell founded the great University that bears his name he had big dreams. He promised to "found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study." I'm not so reckless... I'm only promising to try and do something where hopefully a few people learn some things they didn't already know. This new institution will be called: the Emily Higgins Ginet New School for Troublemakers and Malcontents. Details to follow tomorrow...

Wall Street Buzz

2011-10-05T18:05:00.000-04:00

Normally I wouldn't pass on a rumor heard on the subway, but...

These two pinstripes were chatting on the M train as it rumbled through Brooklyn on the way to Metropolitan Village. "Sammy the zit Zonfrillo is telling everyone to sell all their FedEx stock. He says the company is going down in flames!" The other suit replied: "Manny Leite, the friendly Portagee spy, recommends selling stock of any company that does business with FraudEx." Weird stuff, eh?? Don't worry, Ulysses is on the case.

Justice First Interview with Vivian Walker, USPS Letter Carrier from the...

2011-09-29T18:58:00.000-04:00

Occupy Wall Street protester speaks out

2011-09-28T17:44:00.000-04:00

Part 2, Tina's tale

2011-09-27T16:48:00.001-04:00

As is only natural for a Puertoricana hairdresser in Gotham City, Tina is drop-dead gorgeous… but I swear that’s not the only reason I started chatting her up at the bar. The intelligence shone from her eyes, and before I knew it she was dropping literary insights that would have made her the envy of any Princeton grad. student in an advanced comp. lit. seminar. But of course she never went to college, so she’s found a way to make her hairdressing a source of daily inspiration. Just as Michelangelo visualized the Pietà just by looking at the raw marble, the limp hair Tina faces each day inspires her to create some new beauty in the world every day. She has achieved a wisdom that is rare and true, with no hint of bitterness at all that she hasn’t shared any of the worldly adventures her clients gossip about in front of her. This is the genius of working-class Americans, refusing to feel second-class even as they are treated more poorly every day by their corporate bosses.

What the hell do you mean, Ulysses?

2011-09-27T15:50:00.000-04:00

Voting is great, but changing the voting patterns of those who vote wrong is even better. Many Americans don't vote at all, but almost all of them eat and drink. "Progressive" politicians have been hiding in their ivory towers building a better policy mousetrap, expecting the voters to beat a path to their door. Great idea, NOT!! We need to drink Bud at the bar and eat home fries at the diner and talk to regular folk. They'll gladly tell us what's wrong with this country and how to fix it. This is sorta what Rep. Cicilline is trying to do in RI's 1st district with the spaghetti suppers, etc. But it helps to not hold any sort of office if you're looking to hear the truth. And the truth isn't pretty, my friends. it's not pretty at all...

Tina the erudite hairdresser, or why drinking in bars and eating in diners is more important than voting.

2011-09-27T10:43:00.000-04:00

I just wanted to give fair warning to my Left-sider friends: I’ll be spilling a lot of ink on these pages later today… and introducing a new online educational opportunity. Stay tuned!!

I welcome their hatred F D Roosevelt

2011-09-22T17:50:00.000-04:00

Occupy Wall Street Sept 17: Protester speaks out

2011-09-18T15:37:00.001-04:00

Obama Talks Jobs in Detroit (Part 1 of 3) -- September 5, 2011

2011-09-06T05:25:00.000-04:00

Billy Joel - New York State Of Mind

2011-09-05T14:37:00.000-04:00

From Julius Caesar, to Lorenzo de' Medici, to Boss Tweed, to the Koch brothers

2011-09-04T16:24:00.000-04:00

Today in Wisconsin, the Koch brothers stand exposed as manipulators of Governor Scott Walker, and the Republican state government. This is scandalous and disturbing, because it is the worst sort of political corruption.

Yet, sadly, corruption in politics is nothing new. Ancient Roman elections were rigged to favor a handful of powerful families. "New men", like Cicero, who managed to achieve wealth and prominence, still required the support of more powerful patrons. In the fifteenth century Republic of Florence an attempt was made to limit the potential for abuse by filling most of the magistracies by sortition rather than election. Names of citizens were drawn from different bags for lesser and higher offices. This somewhat random process was supposed to ensure that people could do their civic duty without fear or favor, not having made any promises to win their elections. Yet the Medici family and its supporters learned how to game the system. During a year in which the Medici faction dominated the highest council, they created a quasi-official group of "bag-holders" that were given the honor of maintaining the integrity of the bags. These "bag-holders" were not paid any government salary or given any authority beyond the selection of government officials. For half a century these "bag-holders" did what the Medici faction required. For many of the lesser magistracies, no tampering was needed. Men from small-time merchant or artisan families were thrilled at the chance to help regulate the scales at the fish market. They didn't make waves. For more important posts, the "bag-holders" would rig the bags so that opposition leaders could not control a particular council. So, for example, the pro-Medici folks might dominate a council 11 to 9. They would be careful to give their most prominent opponents a chance to express their opposition, without being able to make meaningful policy changes. This charade was finally ended by the expulsion of Piero de' Medici from Florence in 1494. By 1512, however, the Medici were back with a vengeance, and ultimately established themselves as the hereditary ruling family of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, marrying into the highest royal houses of Europe. Of course, like all good plutocrats the Medici weren't content to become mere royalty. Three different Medici popes (Leo X, Clement VI, and Leo XI) helped to further the family fortunes in heaven and earth.

[The above picture is of Lorenzo "il Magnifico' de' Medici-- it was his princely attitude, while ostensibly just another citizen, that led to the uprising that pushed the Medici out of Florence in 1494, just two years after his death.]

Bill Maher's republican commercial

2011-08-31T20:44:00.000-04:00

Manhattan gets back to business

2011-08-28T19:22:00.001-04:00

Check out the Book of Cletis

2011-08-26T13:56:00.000-04:00

Here's a great paragraph from Brother Cletis of the great commonwealth of Kentucky:

Parents who want the best for their children do not spoon feed them ignorance nor do they permit others to do so. Taking your kids to the Creation Museum where they can see early man saddling up a dinosaur is an act of cruelty. Enrolling them in a place like Liberty School where they can learn to be patriotic but mindless citizens does not serve the interest of our country or our state.

Do yourselves a favor and read the whole post over at B of C. !!

A golden oldie...

2011-08-26T13:01:00.000-04:00

A close friend just requested I repost this little reflective riff, which brother Cletis also seemed to like...

I started out this evening fired up to spew out another rant about the insufferable greed and selfishness of a certain kind of right-wing sociopath. The absurd comment, that provoked my indignation, was meant to be an indictment of government efforts to help the poor and middle class. Such programs were nothing more than "taking from the successful to subsidize the unsuccessful." O.K. This anonymous critic obviously doesn't see sharing as an inherent good. He also equates material riches with success.

Yet maybe this commonplace equation between "success" and wealth is just as problematic as the greed and lack of compassion. In 21st century America we almost always look for having money as evidence of success. Our image of a successful lawyer, doctor, academic, musician, banker, athlete, painter, engineer, salesperson, builder, computer designer-- all include money. Of course this is a relative thing. No academic, no matter how well-published and respected, would ever expect to be paid the kind of money that is given to a star quarterback in the NFL. Occupations that are consistently low-paid are just not linked with the word "successful." To describe someone as a successful bathroom attendant would be interpreted as mean sarcasm.

Is this tendency to define success in material terms justified? It would be foolish to deny that comfort, variety of experience, and other benefits are linked to money. There may be, nonetheless, ways in which we can succeed that don't involve financial success. Here I think looking at some real-life examples could be instructive.

My friend John passed away last summer, just a few months after a cancer diagnosis. I had known him for many years, having met him during my first summer in Rhode Island. He took a number of jobs, ranging from bouncer at a nightclub, to maintenance person at a commercial office building. His personality was so agreeable that he was liked instantly by almost everyone he met. Only his charm could have landed him the bouncer job, as he was a slender man of average height who could never appear physically menacing to anyone over twelve years old. Yet, while John was reliable and hard-working, he was not blessed with the chance to settle into a good job that lasted for more than a few years. After his divorce, John suffered a couple of longish spells of unemployment. This forced him to move back in with his mother and caused other hardships. John never knew financial success in the nearly five decades of his life.

Was John a successful man? I think he was. He had a gift for making people laugh and feel special in his company. He found tremendous enjoyment in fishing, and listening to music. He found pleasure in helping people fix their cars. When he heard something amusing on the radio or T.V. he wanted to share it with all his friends. He was always careful not to bring others down with his own troubles. His appreciation for the smallest gestures of friendship was genuine and powerful. Buying him a sandwich made you feel like you had helped to make the world a better place. John succeeded in bringing people up to a better level. I noticed that folks tended to refrain from malicious gossip in John's presence. Not because he was ever stern or judgemental. His positive attitude was infectious.

While John was a source of happiness to others, and a man who found happiness himself, not everyone enjoys that disposition. Vincent Van Gogh was a clearly troubled man who suffered many physical ailments. He produced a great quantity of timeless art during the last few years of his short life. No one wanted to buy any of it. Now his work is considered priceless. To own one of his paintings would signify great financial success. Was he a success or failure? He didn't succeed in realizing his immediate goals. He didn't succeed in vanquishing mental and physical illness. He lived, he struggled, he expressed his genius. In his own eyes his life was not enough of a success to continue. But we can't call him a failed human being.

I think we throw terms like success and failure around without due consideration of all the factors surrounding any human life. I know someone with severe mental challenges. For him to stand on the right side of the street, and get on the right bus at the right time is a major triumph. I know someone else who is a gifted scholar. For her to write a book review that wasn't insightful and well-argued would be a disappointment. The value of kids is not perfectly captured by their report cards. The value of adults is not measured only by their paycheck.

Hello again!!

2011-08-24T17:25:00.000-04:00

I hope my Leftsider friends are all doing well. The past couple of weeks have been a bit stressful for me, both because of personal issues and because of the intensity of the just-ended Verizon strike. As we often do, I clung to a piece of proverbial wisdom to help me through this rough time. "When life hands you lemons, make lemonade!"

All of us in the bottom 98% have been pelted with lemons for years. Every new outrage seems worse than the last. Yet my experiences with the Verizon stike have convinced me that regular folks are eager to learn a new revolutionary lemonade recipe. People on the street were stopping by to share with workers their own analysis of corporate failures, and intelligent ways to help form a new, more honest system that works for all people.

Is our system already too broken to be fixed? Stay tuned for more thoughts on that question later...

Verizon Strike Ends

2011-08-22T03:31:00.000-04:00

Retrobites: Jimmy Hoffa (1960)

2011-08-22T03:23:00.000-04:00

Union Town by Tom Morello: The Nightwatchman

2011-08-18T00:03:00.000-04:00

Brunch with Bernie 8/12/11

2011-08-13T20:24:00.000-04:00

Jobs with Justice 2011 Highlights Video

2011-08-13T08:25:00.000-04:00

Jobs with Justice at Walmart Lobbying HQ

2011-08-12T11:54:00.000-04:00

UNION WORKER HIT BY VERIZON SCAB

2011-08-11T05:33:00.001-04:00

LOCAL 1105

2011-08-09T22:38:00.000-04:00

Gone fishin'

2011-08-02T18:00:00.000-04:00

Hello Left-Siders!! I'll be rockin' the Jobs With Justice Conference in D.C. for a few days... full report when I get home, promise.

Alexion moving to RI and bringing many jobs

2011-07-31T22:11:00.000-04:00

David Cicilline evoca Cabo Verde no Congresso Americano.

2011-07-30T13:52:00.000-04:00

Bernie Sanders Explains REALITY ...Tax The Rich Bastards NOW!

2011-07-29T01:07:00.001-04:00

Bernie Sanders "Right Wing Republican Extremist Are Doing Everything To ...

2011-07-27T22:46:00.000-04:00

Cenk Uygur "I Gotta Tell People The Truth! Which Is Democrats & Republic...

2011-07-25T23:01:00.000-04:00

The Meaning Of Life - The Autumn Years

2011-07-24T22:07:00.001-04:00

Voter ID at the DMV

2011-07-24T12:49:00.001-04:00

Andrew Sullivan speaks truth to power

2011-07-24T10:12:00.000-04:00

Andrew Sullivan always writes with rhetorical power and eloquence. His views are far more conservative than mine, so I've so far not shared his words with Leftsiders. Here he seems to be, in a clean, pure fashion, fulfilling the mandate given to all intelligent people to "speak truth to power." Buckle in and enjoy!!

America's Cold Civil War

The Republican refusal to countenance any way to raise revenues to tackle the massive debt incurred largely on their watch and from a recession which started under Obama's predecessor makes one thing clear. They are not a political party in government; they are a radical faction that refuses to participate meaningfully in the give and take the Founders firmly believed should be at the center of American government. They are not conservatives in this sense. They are anarchists.

Their fiscal anarchism has now led to their threat to destabilize and possibly upend the American and global economy because they refuse to compromise an inch. They control only one part of the government, and yet they hold all of it hostage. I cannot believe they are prepared to allow the US to default rather than give an inch toward responsibility. Except I should believe it by now. Everything I have written about them leads inexorably to this moment. Opposing overwhelming public opinion on the need for a mixed package of tax hikes and spending cuts, drawing the president into a position far to the right of the right of his party, and posturing absurdly as fiscal conservatives, they are in fact anti-tax and anti-government fanatics, and this is their moment of maximal destruction.

I read George Will's retread column from the 1980s today and simply cannot fathom what he is talking about. Except, I fear I can. He is channeling Mitch McConnell. Boehner and McConnell have one goal and it is has nothing to do with the economy. It is destroying this president and this presidency. They are clearly calculating that the economic devastation their vandalism could create will so hurt the economy that it could bring them back to power through the wreckage. And they will use every smear, every lie, every canard possible to advance this goal. The propaganda channel dreamt of by Roger Ailes in the Nixon era will continue to pump poison into the body politic, until they defeat the man whose legitimacy as president they have never truly accepted.

Coming from abroad, this country seems as if it is beyond dysfunctional. It looks like a banana republic on the verge of economic collapse. Now that Nixon's dream has come true and the GOP is fundamentally the party of the Confederacy, it was perhaps naive to think they could ever accept the legitimacy of this president, or treat him with respect or act as adults in the governing process.

But this is who they are. I longed for Obama to bridge this gulf in ideology. But he cannot bridge it alone, especially when the GOP is determined to burn the bridge entirely, even when presented with a deal so tilted to the right only true fanatics could possibly walk away from it. And so the very republic is being plunged into crisis and possible depression by a single, implacable, fanatical faction. Until they are defeated, the country remains in more peril than we know.