Tag Archives: unemployment

Political Rants

Kvetch in haste.

There’s a lot going on these past few weeks, so I just want to touch on a few things and go. Touch and go, that’s right.

Fast and fatuous. Congressman Darrell Issa’s House Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted this week to recommend Attorney General Eric Holder be held in contempt of Congress. That, of course, has been reported by all and sundry. What have only really been visible on Fox News are the positively loony allegations that are behind this push for the contempt citation. Perhaps you’ve heard this – it’s a conspiracy theory that the Obama administration allowed the “Fast and Furious” arm sales to go wrong in the hopes that the resulting increased gun violence in Mexico would prompt a popular movement for gun control back home.

Crazy stuff. Except that it’s being repeated by G.O.P. lawmakers like Rep. John Mica, Trent Franks, Joe Walsh, and Issa himself. Sen. Charles Grassley (a.k.a. Grandma) has alluded to this as well. So…. why is it the mainstream media haven’t pointed out the fact that this goof-ball paranoid yarn is driving this whole effort? I’m no great fan of Holder, but this is ludicrous. Question for the mainstream media: when they start eating dogfood on T.V., will you report on it?

Lovin’ it. Hiring is still down. Millions are still out of work. This is a depression, and Congress is sitting on their hands, hoping it stays bad long enough to elect one of their own president. They are not alone. American business, large and small, could make a difference here, but they are making do with fewer workers. Frankly, they like it like this. What’s not to like? They make their existing work force work harder for the same money or less (greater “productivity”). The presence of a large surplus labor force keeps the employees quiet and cautious, afraid to ask for a raise, better working conditions, etc.  And pappy tax cut gets elected president. Am I wrong? Has anyone out there ever worked for a business? I have, and I can tell you…. if they can get away with fewer people, in my experience, they do just that.

One wishes large businesses, at least, would act for the good of the nation and start hiring people again instead of sitting on their historically enormous cash reserves. But that’s not their mission. Their mission is to maximize shareholder value, workers be damned. So prosperity for them doesn’t mean jobs for us. It means more of the same.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Money wins.

So Scott Walker held on to his job in Wisconsin. Not a huge surprise. The polling has been in his favor for weeks. Plus the recall effort has kind of had the stench of failure about it as we approached the actual vote; people hedging and putting on the brave face. Sorry to see so many working people disappointed in that way. I’ve never been a big fan of the recall concept, personally, but I understand how they came to that point. If nothing else, the effort did give them motivation to do what actually needs to be done in Wisconsin and elsewhere – organize. It’s not just about voting. It’s more about standing up for your rights and fighting back against the torrent of corporate money swamping our politics.

John Dewey had it about right when he said that politics is the shadow cast on society by big business. I suppose in his day it wasn’t very different – the wealthy have always pressed their advantage. Perhaps the period from World War II through the 1970s will be seen as unique in American history in the sense that workers had some influence on the economic life of the nation. There was a social contract between the rich and the not-rich that provided the latter with a modest share of the wealth they themselves were creating through their labor. That model has been under attack for decades now, and it is crumbling.

Now we are in a small-d depression, limping along in a globalized economy in which the American worker/consumer is no longer the primary focus of business. (India’s middle class is now larger than the entire population of the U.S.) The rampant financial speculation spawned by deregulatory legislation over the past two decades (most notably Graham-Leech-Bliley in 1999, which overturned Glass-Steagall) drove us into the 2008 financial crisis, prompting a massive bailout of the enormous financial institutions that were themselves the product of deregulation. So naturally, now, when it comes time to pay the bills, it’s workers who are being told to eat it, to sacrifice their pensions, to do without health benefits, etc. Similar deal in Europe. The people who benefited massively from wild derivative trading and mortgage-backed securities are not the same people being asked to sacrifice.

Money may have won in Wisconsin this week. But that’s no reason to stop fighting. Elections aren’t the only means of effecting change. Passive resistance is another – let’s exercise it.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Walking like Egyptians.

As happens every few decades, the empire is shaking at its foundations, the rot of popular will spreading from Egypt to other corners of America’s realm. In fact, nowhere does the grip of tyranny seem firmer than right here at home, where low-income people in the colder latitudes may soon be denied home heating assistance to preserve privileges for the very well-off. (My, what a good idea! ) This offered up by a Democratic president, the ink barely dry on his deal for the extension of Bush’s budget busting tax cuts, themselves passed in the same breath as Bush’s declaration of the criminally fraudulent Iraq War. Now everyone…. and I mean everyone … is all about the deficit and how we can compel poor, working class, and retired people to fill the gap left by war and the ravages of wealth.

Fundamental economic disenfranchisement is a large part of what lit a fire under the people of Tunisia and Egypt. Remember that Egypt has, in the past few years, undergone a neoliberal economic restructuring that has exacerbated inequality beyond the miserable point at which it was before. I am not suggesting that Americans are facing this level of privation or repression. But the same process that concentrates wealth at the top in places like Egypt is at work right here at home. It’s not hard to see. Each recession takes a larger bite out of the working class and poor. This most recent one has been the worst in that respect, putting people out of work for months, years, and in some cases the rest of their lives, at least in terms of a solid, remunerative job that can support a family. Meanwhile, the wealthiest are top of the mast, as always, their income swelling to obscene levels, and the very investment bankers that crashed our economy two years ago are raking in the bonuses like never before.

Part of this process is the assault on organized labor, most particularly public sector unions, which are under sustained attack across the nation. This goes far beyond wringing concessions on contracts. This is about the vilification of government workers and, in the most extreme cases, attempts to curtail hard-won collective bargaining rights. That’s what’s happening in Wisconsin right now. That’s why all those folks are walking like Egyptians up the steps of the state capitol. That fight has nothing to do with budget deficits – it’s a precalculated political attack on public sector unions, which is the nation’s last labor stronghold.  Wisconsin’s governor is driving a truck through the hole opened by the likes of New Jersey’s execrable governor Christie and others.

We need to stand with these people. Like those folks in Cairo and Alexandria, their fight is very much ours as well.

luv u,

jp