Tag Archives: republicans

Political Rants

It ain’t broke.

Not that this is all that unusual, but I heard from various representatives of the Republican party and the “tea party” movement on NPR this morning. I really wonder why these right-wing types are so critical of NPR – the network is almost wholly devoted to providing them with outsized coverage. Every time they sneeze, Steve Inskeep is holding the rag. Sure, I listen to them regularly, because they have some good reporters, some good programs, and because they’re better than everything else on my upstate New York radio dial. But that’s a bit like voting for Barack Obama over Mitt Romney. Yeah, Barry’s a pretty lousy president; he’s just better by an order of magnitude than the object he was running against. Pretty low bar, frankly.

Low-bar radioWhat irks me, though, is the legitimization of truly extremist right-wing notions of governance (or lack of same) through what I’m sure NPR and other networks consider “balance coverage”. A brief example: yesterday there was a report on some research having to do with economic inequality and the degree to which people believe the federal government has an active role to play in addressing its effects. It was presented in the usual “this side thinks this, while the other thinks this” manner; specifically, 90% of Democrats believe the government should be involved in fighting inequality, while Republicans are evenly split. This was played as reinforcing the notion of a nation divided along party lines, but they buried the lead – by these percentages, it looks like a significant majority … maybe 60 -70% – agree that the government has an active role to play. Why the hell isn’t that the story?

The only reason why extremist tea party-type ideas significantly influence national policy is that they have an outsized voice in the national conversation. That’s why we are essentially cutting the long-term unemployed off at the knees, canceling their unemployment when there’s still three job seekers for every available job, slashing food stamps while cutting taxes on corporations and throwing more money at the Pentagon. Large numbers of unemployed people are a necessary component of capitalism – that keeps labor inexpensive and profits high. So to the free market fundamentalist, that system is not broken … it’s working just fine. And that is the point of view that will continue to drive the national conversation until, along with the tea party, Occupy Wall Street gets their own response to the State of the Union.

Color me disgusted.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Austerity rules.

Just a few things I want to comment on this week, not at any great length. Bear with me, please.

Human Rights. In what appeared to be an effort to elicit Vietnam’s cooperation in the looming Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) “free trade agreement” – really an investors’ rights agreement – Secretary of State John Kerry recently paid a visit to Hanoi to discuss new maritime security cooperation measures, against the backdrop of China’s recent declaration of a kind of demilitarized zone in the South China Sea. None of this is surprising, but what kind of made my jaw hang open was the reporting around the visit. The main hook was that Kerry had been part of America’s expeditionary force in South Vietnam during the war, and he toured some of his old haunts in the south. NPR (not to single them out – everyone else did this, too), practically in a single breath, made reference to this trip down memory lane, then referred to problems with Vietnam’s human rights record, which Washington complains about.

Kerry greets a survivor.Really? Just a little bit of context might be nice. What was Kerry doing there in the 1960s again? Vacationing? No. Oh, that’s right – he was part of a massive invasion force that was grinding Vietnam – particularly southern Vietnam – to a bloody pulp, leaving probably 2 million dead and three countries destroyed; a massive crime that we have never been held accountable for. I think it’s a little premature to lecture Hanoi on human rights, frankly.

Work release. The Fed will be dialing back their “quantitative easing” policy in the coming year. I have mixed feelings about this, frankly. The central bank has been the only organ of American power – public or private – seemingly willing to invest in this economy. Much of that investment has been in vain, as the banks the Fed lends to have been extremely reluctant to lend that money out. Corporations are sitting on their money, not hiring at any great clip. And of course, at every level of government, it’s cut, cut, cut; thousands of public sector jobs eliminated. Austerity rules, once again.

I have this nagging feeling that American capital is unwilling to invest in American workers – that they feel it’s a bad risk, and so they seek richer pastures elsewhere, where workers rights are even less protected the meager safeguards we enjoy here. What we need is some public investment entity to pick up the slack. We need to commit ourselves to full employment – if someone is willing and able to work, and the private sector has nothing to offer them, let the government provide them with work. They, in turn, will spend that money in their local economy, supporting private sector jobs and growth. At the same time we need to stop incentivizing corporate off-shoring of jobs (see the TPP, above).

Austerity isn’t inevitable. It’s a choice, a bad one, and we have to reject it if we want a better life.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Let’s make a deal.

There are few things in life more certain than eventual bipartisan agreement on screwing large swaths of our fellow citizens. While I’m glad there won’t be a repeat of the government shutdown / debt ceiling self-immolation ritual, this pattern of gradually ratcheting up the austerity gets very tiresome after two or three cycles. This time, the unemployed get thrown under the bus. What a great way to save money – take food out of the mouths of people who have been down on their luck for more than a year. Freaking 7% unemployment and they’re acting like the jobless are just plain lazy. That’s a truly criminal level of ignorance on the part of elected officials.

One thing, though. Let’s dispense with this notion that the Republicans are somehow against raising taxes. This has been thoroughly debunked since the House went red three years ago. Even before they took office, they killed the “Making Work Pay” tax credit, costing families like mine another $800 a year. Just last year they canceled the payroll tax holiday – another hike. Thanks, Mr. Boehner. This year, it’s a “fee” on air travel. Not something I take personally, but still … a tax by any other name.

And yet they still cling to this label, and the corporate media repeats the myth because it’s the simple thing to do, the path of least resistance. We are supposed to see the disagreements between the parties as a clash of equivalent versions of extremism, when the positions Democrats stake out in this decade are almost identical, save marriage equality, to those held by the Republicans fifteen to twenty years ago. They were conservative then. Democrats, by and large, are conservative now. Republicans are now driven by their hard right, which is more delusional than ever. This week, their leaders chose not to take their lead, but the path they are cutting is a highly conservative one, an extension of the austerity narrative, and one that will keep our economy in stasis for the foreseeable future.

Well, no shut down. Something to give one cheer for. Then it’s back to work.

luv u,

jp