"I don't care about my personal legacy," Nader says. "I care about how much justice is advanced in America and in our world day after day." -Ralph Nader
The Nation’s Eric Alterman hates Ralph Nader
Eric Alterman undeniably has great taste in music, as his recent newsletters describe his attendance at the Neil Young and Hot Tuna gigs this week in New York City. When it comes to preaching the Gore is God mantra, here is where we part company. Although Al Gore blatantly cost Ralph Nader the 2000 election, those in the Al Gore is God camp are still operating under the hallowed delusion that green businessman Gore
would have stopped the myth of the tech lobby sponsored, great labor shortage and job outsourcing through H-1bs
would have broken ties with the insurance companies so we’d all have health coverage today
would have not pretended that the “war” in Iraq was about democracy instead of oil
would have severed ties with Silicon Valley venture capitalists and green tech start up sycophants so that he would not appear to have a conflict of interest with the beltway
would never have evolved into a $2B green tech businessman with potential sites on soaking American taxpayers through quick get rich green tech investments
is a man for the people and not the elites (of course, the cult of Gore spinners really know it is the opposite but don’t want the rest of us to know that)
I met Ralph Nader at a 2000 fundraiser and was struck by how much he emphasized back then that neither candidate was committed to the economy and he stressed that the corporate welfare duopoly of Bush and Gore would both sink the middle class further as they sucked up to the tech lobby demanding increased immigration at a time when white collar jobs were disappearing due to the great dot.com bubble and burst. And yet, so many Democrats ignored this fact and to this day mindlessly bash Nader, a decent and honorable man who cared most for the interests as opposed to corporate welfare candidates who were running, Bush and Gore.
I knew that Gore would do nothing about this back then and to this date, Gore has only proven how dedicated he is to his friends responsible for selling out our white collar jobs with his roles as board advisor and member to Google and Apple and others who subscribe to the let them eatcake third world caste system, great labor shortage scam of outsourcing and driving down compensation at a time when cost of living skyrockets, health insurance is cost prohibitive and or unavailable, The FDA has been sold out, and the feudal lord sentiment that visibly sustains the greedy in this neoliberal cult from the smartest peeps in the room prevail.
Alterman calls the Nader voters a bunch of "Leninists" and yet as Gore’s history demonstrates, a jolt of Leninism is what we needed then and need now more than ever: a bunch of Leninists to rock the boat when journalists, pundits and columnists and authors are intimately pegged to the corporate welfare media trough.
Maybe Gore could indeed use his Nobel winning influence to stop this practice of replacing our white collar professionals with cheap immigrant labor when it has been proved there is no labor shortage here but in fact a shortage of high paid jobs. Has anyone heard him say otherwise? Hmph.
But hey, like I said – Eric Alterman has great taste in music.
“Our last hope is to step outside of the two-party system and build movements that defy the Democrats and the Republicans. If we fail to do this, we will continue to undergo a corporate coup d’etat in slow motion that will end in feudalism.”
-Chris Hedges
Can Hillary Stop Congo Rape AND Corporate Rape of Middle Class Americans?
Two articles this week neatly converge on the subject of rape including Hillary Clinton's Congo (DRC) visit and most notably, Chris Hedge's excellent assessment:
“Our task is to build movements that can act as a counterweight to the corporate rape of America. We must opt out of the mainstream. We must articulate and stand behind a viable and uncompromising socialism, one that is firmly and unequivocally on the side of working men and women.”
Who are the political and corporate elites behind the Neo-Frat Boy Corporate State? As MSM media and MSM blogs chew up bandwidth over Hillary's Congo (DRC) trip where she visciously and oh-so-brutally browbeat a defenseless male Congolese student who asked her about her husband's thoughts here, many, such as yours truly, are questioning the non-story elements in the SOS's reaction to the student:
"My husband is not secretary of state, I am," she snapped. "If you want my opinion, I will tell you my opinion," she said. "I am not going to be channeling my husband."
Was Hillary 'snippy'? When was being no-holds-barred assertive by a woman ever considered anything less than snippy? Would this virtual non-story even have legs if she were male? Although the sexist framing of this story after the fact is arguably newsworthy, the fact that Hillary was on an anti-rape mission to the Congo to commit $17 million in aid relief while she simultaneously promotes the rape of white collar American jobs on behalf of corporate America and India Inc. is forcing citizens of all political stripes to ask why the SOS hasn't committed to taking care of the People's business at home.
Hillary the humanitarian? Not unlike resurrecting Harvey Keitel's memorable, underworld role as Victor The Cleaner in Point of No Return, leave it to the New York Times to make sure today that the world precisely knows that Hillary was visiting the Congo to exclusively and selflessly broker $17 million of humanitarian aid to Congo rape victims. As everyone knows, the USA loves people - especially its own! Even if it can't inspire its elitist political class to deep-six the insurance lobby and enact Single Payer or to stop selling off our jobs to India.
An excellent study published by the Project 2049 Institute entitled China and Congo's Coltan Connection shines a light on the estimated $24 trillion dollar Congo (DRC) mineral market. The NY Times article did not, however, discuss that the Congo (DRC) is embraced in a struggle between China and the U.S. over control of the country's lucrative mineral and coltan reserves. What is causing the rape of Congo women? Project 2049 responds:
“Efforts to reduce demand for conflict materials through supply chain transparency are crucial steps towards ending the cycle of violence supported by mineral profits.”
One of the greatest things about being an American is to know that at least, in theory, we are supposed to be the world's Star of the Sea when it comes to humanitarian rights. And at one time, yours truly could also say that one of the best parts about being a Democrat was that I was a member of a party who cared about our neighbors. Sadly, this is no longer true of the Democrats, as it has morphed into the I Got Mine one-stop-cult club for disillusioned, dumbed-down elitist wannabes and mandarins tethered to the trough. This is why I say that I did not leave the Democratic party, it left me in support of Ralph Nader.
Corporate rape of America's middle class. Further, Hillary unfortunately has a track record of less than humanitarian efforts here in this country towards her fellow Americans, as she is a leading supporter and facilitator of outsourcing and insourcing American white collar jobs to India. It is disappointing to know that Hillary's indelible carbon footprint is all over the death of millions of American white collar workers' lives, as she profitably presides over handing American jobs to Indian businessmen - which she publicly and proudly shrugs off as “friendly competition.” Where is the humanity as Hillary sits at a table with a "Heal Africa" sign on it while she promotes American job outsourcing? (Coltan, btw, is a big, big ingredient that major technology manufacturers need in order to produce laptops and other fun gadgets that make the tech lobby go around.)
Rather than the MSM media (and their sycophant so-called “progressive” MSM blog teatfeeders) focusing on her role in the systematic rape of millions of white collar American jobs by corporate and political insiders, Democrats have to now wonder what exactly they got with their wasted Democratic vote. For too long, Democratic rank and file voters have hidden behind the illusion that there is no alternative to the GOP.
“The Democrats have been doing this to us since Bill Clinton. It is the same old merry-go-round, only with Obama branding. And if we have not learned by now that the system is broken, that as citizens we do not matter to our political elite, that we live in a corporate state where our welfare and our interests are irrelevant, we are in serious trouble. Our last hope is to step outside of the two-party system and build movements that defy the Democrats and the Republicans. If we fail to do this, we will continue to undergo a corporate coup d’etat in slow motion that will end in feudalism.”
Mr. Nader knows the Democratic party has been sold out, but the “base” is comprised of its own version of “teabaggy” mandarins who, at the bottom, are comfortable spewing hate-monger sentiments while on the dole and the at the top, hypocritical elitists who care nothing about the dreadful upper-middle or the non-portfolio working class that has been broken by the back-room dealing politicos:
“How many times have their employers threatened them with going abroad? How many times have they threatened the workers with outsourcing? The polls on job insecurity are record-high by those who have employment. And the liberal intelligentsia have failed them. They [the intellectuals] have bought into carping and making lecture fees as the senior fellow at the institute of so-and-so. Look at the top 50 intelligentsia—not one of them supported our campaign, not one of them has urged for street action and marches.”
“The working class is being plunged into desperation that will soon rival the misery endured by the working class in China and India. And the Democratic Party, including Obama, is a willing accomplice.”
It's also disappointing that the smart and otherwise talented former NY state Senator turned SOS Hillary would sell us out. The Democratic party has let liberals down, and yet I know a number of people who were once Republicans who came out in support of Ralph Nader, also. What does this mean? It means the One Party of Big Money has flagrantly turned against people from both parties and they are starting to get the hint that
IT'S NOT THE ECONOMY, STUPID. IT'S YOUR JOB!
So where is the collective will to unite against these elitist and greedy blowhards from BOTH parties? There are bottom feeders on both sides, Dem and Repub – whose intelligence levels are compromised by and/or equal to the number of digits on their extremities. The task is to unite, not divide at the middle class economic level by saying “No” to offshoring/insourcing our jobs. If the Internet has proved anything, it is that the MSM and in particular, its dull-normal MSM blog teetfeeders provide nothing in the way of uniting people to improve their own lives. Right here. But our leaders continue to see the corporate Cash Cow of Indian Outsourcing as their personal piggy banks:
“They [administration leaders] don’t see the distinction between public power and corporate power,” Nader said. “This is their time in history to reassert public values represented by workers, consumers, taxpayers and communities. They are creating a jobless recovery, the worst of the worst, with the clear specter of inflation on the horizon. We are heading for deep water.”
“Nader was singled out for destruction, as Henriette Mantel and Stephen Skrovan point out in their engaging documentary movie on Nader, “An Unreasonable Man.” General Motors had him followed in an attempt to blackmail him. It sent an attractive woman to his neighborhood Safeway supermarket in a bid to meet him while he was shopping and then seduce him; the attempt failed, and GM, when exposed, had to issue a public apology.”
Oh, the apologies! Well-funded attacks against Nader picked up steam in 1971 with the launch of an eight page memo, where Hedges cites the rise of the Neo-Frat Boy Corporate State agenda against U.S. citizens with the formation of the Cash Cow of Indian Outsourcing friendly, "Business Roundtable" fraternity below:
“But far from ending their effort to destroy Nader, corporations unleashed a much more sophisticated and well-funded attack. In 1971, the corporate lawyer and future U.S. Supreme Court Justice LewisPowell wrote aneight-page memo, titled “Attack on American Free Enterprise System,” in which he named Nader as the chief nemesis of corporations. It became the blueprint for corporate resurgence.Powell’s memo led to the establishment of theBusiness Roundtable,which amassed enough moneyand power to direct government policy and mold public opinion. The Powell memo outlined ways corporations could shut out those who, in “the college campus, the pulpit, the media, the intellectual and literary journals,” were hostile to corporate interests.”
And of those bi-partisan think tanks that the Neo-Frat Boys deploy to pad their spreadsheets with mighty lies about a Great Labor Shortage? Some of them do give it the old college try, as this HarvardBusiness Review study entitled Restoring American Competitiveness reveals that “sophisticated engineering and manufacturing capabilities that underpin innovation in a wide range of products have been rapidly leaving too” in order for a few corporate insiders to cash in quickly by ridding their companies of American workers in favor of foreign cheap labor. So much for “innovation”, unless you call a few Neo-Frat Boys with a lust for profiteering at the expense of Main Street “innovators”...
And how's that whole US employment thing working out?
“Powell called for the establishment of lavishly funded think tanks and conservative institutes to churn out ideological tracts that attacked government regulation and environmental protection. His memo led to the successful effort to place corporate-friendly academics and economists in universities and on the airwaves, as well as drive out those in the public sphere who questioned the rise of unchecked corporate power and deregulation. It saw the establishment of organizations to monitor and pressure the media to report favorably on issues that furthered corporate interests. And it led to the building of legal organizations to promote corporate interests in the courts and appointment of sympathetic judges to the bench.”
I don't believe all US business leaders are total sociopaths without integrity and conviction (or that antiquated thingy called a moral compass), but there is a distinct correlation between the decimation of our economy, the erosion of US innovation and the rise of the MBA obsessive, Neo-Frat Boy Corporate State that sold out our jobs to the third world. Do any of the BR brass members finally have second thoughts?
“Backshoring”? LWOH reported here that NCR, GE, and Dow among others are now “backshoring” jobs to America. A good thing? If those jobs are permanent, non-temporary status and go to American workers with good compensation packages and are NOT outsourced to foreign corporations who import cheap labor under H-1B and student visas, indeed. Wouldn't it be something if American “progressives” would unite with the same well-placed vigor against the Catholic Church's pedophilia crimes/protection racket and lobby insulated US business leaders and their enabling political pals to stop this war on America's educated workers? Oh, and about that economy thing?
There ARE things US corporations and political figures can do to push the unemployment rate down and revitalize Main Street: STOP importing foreign labor/corporations and say NO to anti-American worker lobbyists.
2Truthy’s Cahones/Charisma DNC Speaker Rating(click on speeches of note links.)
Michelle Obama spoke. 0 = meh. Hillary spoke. 6 = killer orange pantsuit and blue backdrop. Was she planning on prison time? Joe Biden spoke. 7.5 = smooth as a tumbler of Courvoisier. Jill Biden spoke. 5 = who knew Biden’s wife was so hot? Dennis Kucinich spoke. 9.5 = should have been the frontrunner. The Big Dog spoke. 10 = everybody loves Bill. Stay tuned for the reality TV show. Tonight, The Illinois Enema Bandit speaks!
Wake up, America! It’s that exciting election time of year again, when all good Democrats suspend their better judgment to actually believe the stupefying lies and bullshit their chosen candidates spew in order to shore up the voting bloc of the poor, tired, disenfranchised and huddled masses. (If it weren’t so hilarious, it would be cynical.) And what better way to shore them up by creating MORE of them! Genius!
So forget about the war on terror and come back to this war on America’s middle class. You know the one, where white collar jobs are disappearing along with the blue collar ones, and you no longer have access (much less affordable) to healthcare, your phones and computers are prey and delightful folly for a slew of horribly overpaid, smug and unattractive losers who hawk useless technology and have nothing better to do than look into your shorts and actually gossip about it. Oh yes, spacefans, the Democrats are angling for the top job to seal the deal on taking you down in this race to the bottom. I know. An “Independent” candidate will only mess things up but hey, since Ralph Nader is set to be on the ballot nationwide for the first time, these times are changing, baby. (I will be posting separately on Ralph Nader and Sean Penn’s great speech.)
Did anyone catch Bill Clinton’s terrific humanity speech? The man has got to be the best political and public speaker this country every served up. But oh boy, back to the Democratic agenda: Who cares if this country can’t sustain its current population with great paying jobs and healthcare in a prosperous, humane way? In other words, the Democrats are committed to expanding corporate welfare programs just as much, if not more -- than Republicans. One. Big. Money. Party. Period.
The Democratic Party relies upon a huge pool of poor people in order to gain support. So far, the Democrats have done a great job at siding with corporate welfare policies that sell out our white collar jobs, limit access to healthcare, and erode our civil liberties. To learn more about how committed the Democrats are to selling out this nation’s citizens to the third world, visit noslaves.com and read Rob Oak’s excellent article today on Joe Biden’s betrayal of his blue collar roots and how he will add to the Democratic ticket to sell out American professionals. Never mind Barack Obama’s caving on FISA, supporting the expansion of immigration during a time when jobs (white and blue collar) are disappearing and his flimsy healthcare plan…Democratic voters like to forget, much like driving with their eyes closed.
This week in Denver, amidst plenty of 24/7 news coverage and 25/7 private security and law enforcement, the Democrats are proving to the nation once again (as they do every four years) that they are the other half of the One Party of Big Money, comprised of bipartisan Republicans and Democrats. According to this ABC News article, wealthy members of what is described as the "Pelosi 100" attended a “private, lavish party Monday night in the penthouse suite of the Denver Performing Arts Center, featuring Tony Bennett, John Legend and James Taylor.” Tony Bennett? Hmm. I wonder if Alec Baldwin made it…At any rate, beyond the ring of the Pelosi 100, lies an extended family of corporate welfare sponsors who are giving it their best shot to make sure that you, dear plebey reader, will have even less access to a well paying white collar job or single payer healthcare. And all kinds of other good stuff.
Yes, it’s true. The Democrats dig this whole elitist have and have not scene even more than the Republicans and NEED the lesser haves to support their pyramid scheme. As Ellen Miller of the Sunlight Foundation describes the chosen ones in Denver this week:
"It feels very elitist," said Ellen Miller of the Sunlight Foundation, a non-profit group that pushes for openness in politics. "To flaunt the fact that there is a higher elite class of people who are big political donors, who have reached that status because they have more money, feels fundamentally undemocratic," she said.
And how about that arrested ABC News producer? Make sure to click on that link where you get to watch Asa Eslocker get assaulted by police for standing on a public sidewalk attempting to take photos of Democratic senators and VIP donors if front of the Brown PalaceHotel. Don’t forget to click that link and watch what your corporate sponsored Democratic Convention masterminds think of what it means to live in a Democratic society. Suckas. Meanwhile, the best that Democratic supporters can do is bleat and smear intelligent third party candidates like Ralph Nader who is the only one standing up for them. Oh, the allure of jumpingoff a cliff because everyone else is…Then again, isn’t that the definition of politics?
Why was there such a heavy police/security presence with police telling reporters "no media is allowed," although observers on the balcony of a nearby apartment building could view the scene? Was it because the unwashed masses are only in town for window dressing to validate greedy media and corporate insiders? Was it because this convention is NOT really about stopping job outsourcing to legal and illegal immigrants or providing single payer health care at all or demanding a stop to illegal wiretapping? Was it because economic justice and our freedoms spell disaster for the insiders who stand to gain with a heavily invested Obama/Biden ticket?
Oh no, you sillies. It was all about a beauty pagent.
But aren’t Democrats supposed to be the People’s Party? Hahahahahha. How quickly Democrats forget and forgive that is was Joe Biden who championed a bill that is responsible for hundreds of thousands of Americans losing their homes. …
Oh, Joe, Joe, Joe… Beltway insider Joe "Bankruptcy Bill" Biden is smooth, and no doubt an addition to the Obama financial/tech/AIPAC lobby backed agenda. Yet it was Democrat Joe Biden – who has reportedly enjoyed hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from credit industry executives – who endorsed the measure early on and worked to gather Democratic support for it.
Way to go, Democrats. And what of our white collar jobs disappearing faster than you can say tandoori? Who do you suppose is minding the store on that front? The Democrats?? HA! With any luck at all, maybe the Democratic voters will figure out that this hopeless band of thugs – some with awesome speaking abilities -- called the Democratic candidates are not down with them after all.
I would like to believe as much as any other Democrat that this Democratic ticket has our citizen's best interests at heart and will put the brakes on outsourcing and display a middle finger to the lobbyists (tech, banking, insurance, AIPAC and big pharma) who currently sit in their back pockets. With the One Big Party of Money? When pigs fly.
"Bankrupt corporate capitalism is on its way to bankrupting the socialism that is trying to save it. That is the end stage. If they no longer have socialism to save them then we are into feudalism. We are into private police, gated communities and serfs with a 21st century nomenclature." -Ralph Nader
Imagine if you could put all the lawyers (no empty seats), greedy corporate overlords and their political enablers on a big, fat bus (I know, it’s a big bus) headed for a cliff and told them that they weren’t getting off it until they came up with a plan to stop the legalized looting of America’s middle class? For all of the millions of immigration attorneys who profit from teaching corporations how to not hire American workers and handing American jobs to imported workers that has contributed to the demise of our economy and America’s educated middle class, imagine the positive, corrective value this segment alone could make toward restoring and rebuilding the economy and broken society? Maybe some like Cohen & Grigsby could even do it pro bono as a form of retribution to the American public.
But for all of the much needed remedies to rebuild our economy and heal our society at the hands of these greedsters, America needs, among other things, a national put an attorney to good works program. And a busload of faith to get by.
In his article Resist or Become Serfs, Chris Hedges writes about how the bank and corporate bailouts are intended to make the wealthy wealthier and loot the middle class. He describes how this administration is lying to us about job statistics, and by now only cretins and Groupthinkers would ignore the fact that our government officials have made it JOB ONE to sell off American white collar jobs to the third world. With greedy American corporatists pining to become feudal slave lords, America’s casino culture of corruption has got to stop. Hedges quotes Ralph Nader, who observes that the trillions of dollars in bailout money is being woefully misspent:
“The Justice Department is overwhelmed. It doesn't have a tenth of the prosecutors, the investigators, the auditors, the attorneys needed to deal with the previous corporate crime wave before the bailout started last September.
So, if the DOJ is understaffed, why not take some of that bailout money and instead define a program that recruits highly skilled American lawyers to defend the employment rights of discriminated against citizens against lawyers who train American corporations how not to hire Americans? Where is the bailout money to benefit American citizens who, as Hedges points out, are the victims? Why not take some of that bailout money and apply it instead towards compensating highly skilled lawyers to throw these corrupt bankers, politicians and corporate crooks in the slammer? Why not? The way I see it, as long as we’re going to have a corporatocracy, surely, there are a few lawyers out there who would be willing to step up to the plate and redefine their business models for the greater good of our society? Remember, It’s Not the Economy, Stupid. It’s YOUR JOB.
Hedges reaffirms what we are witnessing, how America’s “anemic democracy” is devolving into a third-world nation as its idle citizenry does nothing to “immediately halt our elite's rapacious looting of the public treasury” while our government rapidly transforms into a police state as the direct result of “unchecked corporate capitalism.” After all, the stimulus and bailout plans were and are, after all, not designed to save the citizens of this country:
“The elite will withdraw into heavily guarded gated communities where they will have access to security, goods and services that cannot be afforded by the rest of us. Tens of millions of people, brutally controlled, will live in perpetual poverty. This is the inevitable result of unchecked corporate capitalism. The stimulus and bailout plans are not about saving us. They are about saving them. We can resist, which means street protests, disruptions of the system and demonstrations, or become serfs.”
As trillions of dollars are budgeted for bank and corporate bailouts without oversight or public approval, Chris Hedges notes that the Obama administration, rather than chart a new course, is intent on re-inflating the bubble that will complete the wealth redistribution trickling-up scheme designed to rob America’s middle class:
“The trillions of dollars of government funds being spent to sustain these corrupt corporations could have renovated our economy. We could have saved tens of millions of Americans from poverty. The government could have, as consumer activist Ralph Nader has pointed out, started 10 new banks with $35 billion each and a 10-to-1 leverage to open credit markets. Vast, unimaginable sums are being placed into these dirty corporate hands without oversight. And they will use this money as they always have-to enrich themselves at our expense.”
Hedges cites how the U.S. has been in a steady economic decline for decades, and how previous administrations have resorted to lies in order to enable their corporatist, feudal lord paymasters:
“Our actual unemployment rate, when you include those who have stopped looking for work and those who can only find part-time jobs, is not 8.5 percent but 15 percent. A sixth of the country is now effectively unemployed. And we are shedding jobs at a faster rate than in the months after the 1929 crash.”
TARP schmarp. If American taxpayers are footing the bill, let’s get some bang for our dwindling bucks. “Bailing out” the bankers and corporate crooks by looting middle class taxpayers without demanding our labor rights reforms to get our jobs back is the stupidest thing Americans could allow. No wonder the world, particularly the third world - disrespects and laughs at us, because America has slid into third world status and the plebes STILL allow the politicians to steal our jobs for personal profit.
As I have said before, economic depressions can be survived as long as people have jobs to afford them, and the stealing of American jobs by these corrupt corporate overlords and politicians so that they can profit has got to end by halting The Cash Cow of Indian Outsourcing, the importation of cheap, third world labor.
It's true. Democratic elites would much rather see McCain elected than a candidate who would stand up for the middle/upper middle class and risk upsetting the house of cards that works to their economic benefit while the neighborhoods around them go to hell, Blackwater moves in, neighbors move out and the winner takes all. It's a great game for "I Got Mine" pretentious, venial and greedy people -- a growing, twenty first century phenomenon that finds its voice in viral marketing and branding of everything from diet pills to presidential candidates, courtesy a few rabid blogs and online media outlets who are paid for by the status quo.
Honestly, I don't know why I bother. While the subprime mortgage mess and downward spiral in income and disappearing jobs does not directly affect me, what is it about the hubris drenched, arrogance from Democrats who wouldn't think about hopping on a bicycle without best-in-show bicycle shorts with matching, skin tight jerseys... These days, it's getting harder to differentiate between a Republican and a Democrat as elites of both parties have decided that circling the wagons against the plebes is the best way to fend off their whining about disappearing jobs, no access to healthcare, tainted food, deranged and snooping telecom execs, and a government, to quote the words of the legendary Chrissie Hynde, "that has no pride."
Thanks a lot, smug, arrogant Democrats who think the rhetoric of "hope" and "change" is gonna keep the greedy corporate elites from tossing you and/or your neighbors out of the house due to the subprime mortgage crisis and out of jobs due to the Great Labor Shortage Myth that is responsible for the disappearance of white collar jobs. Not that liberal elites ever cared about others. They are no different from the Reagan Republicans, as evinced by Barack Obama's keen affinity for Reagan, proof of the sham this two party system really is. Who is behind the fractured fairy tale of a Democratic Party on the ropes?
Income Equality? I think there should be income equality between ALL Federal Reserve Chairmen and their first floor maid. Alan Greenspan Thinks You Make Too Much Money.Alan Greenspan, with support from billionaires like Bill Gates, Al Gore, John Chambers and others who lobby to cut jobs and pay for Americans, are working hard to turn this country into a veritable half-way house for the third world while they tell citizens here to go to hell. The only thing worse than these predictable greedsters wanting to kick the collective white collar working ass to the curb are the liberal Democrats who support them with the "I GOT MINE" mentality responsible for killing off the Democratic party. Haven't you heard? Alan Greenspan says the only way to address the economic fallout he and his ilk put us into is for American white collar professionals is to EARN LESS MONEY despite the fact that costs are rising, layoffs are spiraling out of control and we are (loudly channel Sam Kinnison here) most likely FUCKING GOING INTO A DEPRESSION!!! Well guess what? All the viral "Yes We Can" youtube videos in the world can't bring change unless the two headed corporate shill, HilBama, gets out of the way and tells Congress to go fuck themselves and stand up for the majority in this country.
Note to candidates: HilBama, unless either one of you get's your shit together and just say "NO" to the corporate elites and the Indian lobby who loooooove so much killing off our jobs here, you can kiss this vote bah-byeeeeee...
Election Madness. In response to Howard Zinn's article "Election Madness" in the March issue of the Progressive, where exactly are any of these Democratic writers and journalists/columnists like Zinn, Chomsky, Klein, Thomm Hartmann, Amy Goodman etc. and other self-described Democratic blogger/columnist/book authors to talk about issues? While they occasionally promote the "populist" message while simultaneously aligning themselves with liberal corporate elites who quietly fund cultish, ANTI-POPULIST organizations who take their cues from Alan Greenspan, all of them, by omission, champion killing off our white collar jobs and cutting wages in order to keep importing cheap third world labor. We know the MSM won't touch real issues on this race to the bottom, but it's getting a little old, now, to see how the emergence of high profile, status quo puffed-up, online blogs like HuffPo brainwash an increasingly cultist crew of sheeple. If it weren't so transparent, it would be hilarious.
Enablers of the nuevo status quo message are funding organizations like
which boast a cast of characters including high profile actors. Many of their stated goals are indeed noteworthy and yet, like any effective marketing department in any other industry with a mission statement that reads "Grow Goddammit", these orgs appeal to potential subscribers on the basis of a shared ideology and rely upon viral marketing programs targeted to brand specific messages such as "we can sacrifice our jobs and paychecks because we already got ours so now we need to sacrifice you, poor and philanthropic minded plebe, while the Royal We all just one stock tip away from another tidy haul..."
These orgs are staffed/supported by liberal elites or the "I Got Mine Circuit" who support outsourcing/insourcing jobs. Neither website touches the problem of white collar layoffs and both orgs have zero tolerance for anyone who dares question who the Grand Poohbahs are that pave the way in the Senate and Congress to promote the mass exodus of white collar jobs. Why is this? Neither one of the above organizations and the sycophants who subscribe to them represent the millions of educated, white collar citizens who are continuing to lose jobs and take home dwindling paychecks. Who is behind these Nuevo "shadow organizations" that are aiding the corporate welfare politicians and executives backed by executive politico cultists who represent the status quo? Whatsmore, these "liberal" and self-described progressive writers involved with organizations like the ones above deplore the masses just as much the corporate elites that funnel funds/opportunities their way. Why? Scarcity of resources. If everybody had a good job with good pay, nobody would feel desperate enough to want to read their gratuitous pandering. Should we protest? Absolutely. But against who? (Sorry, but I don't find anything "progressive" about an insider cult mentality of perfumed parlor snakes going around acting like it's cool to tell everybody else to fuck off. )
Note, Zinn, Chomsky, Klein (Naomi, Joe, it seems all Kleins are on the corporate welfare dole) and any of the above writers and their fans conveniently direct the masses against the political puppet candidates owned by the corporations. Instead of naming names of the real tyrants -- the corporate elites who don't want the middle class anywhere near their companies as they can outsource those jobs to the poor and less educated, third world people for a fraction of the pay ---, these writers continue to create the illusion that there is an "alternative" to the big, bad, MSM when they in fact pine for the same crumbs at this ham-fisted table.
Short of Hillary or Obama choosing Nader for a VP running mate, more than ever, Democrats MUST finally get their sh&# together and support the ONLY candidate now speaking up in support of the very issues that are killing off the middle/upper middle classes here.
A Nader 2008 presidential run, at the very least, is what is in order to nudge liberal Democrats to their senses to unify the party, NOT by going rabid and viral with empty, feel good rhetoric against fellow Dems but by finally realizing that American white collar citizens can no longer be offered up as the sacrificial cow to third world. If we don't collectively put our own house in order, what does this say about the country and the jerks who run it and support it? Oh wait. I just answered that.
“Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.” -Edward R. Murrow-
Here in the United States, we are all as anxious as anyone else to pass this current kidney stone of a president.
Meanwhile, the hills are alive...with the sound of Barry…but will a spoonful of sugar really help the medicine go down?
Americans of all stripes are most desperate to unload this horribly embarrassing, tax-payer looting, English-language mangling, war-mongering, pro-outsourcing, anti-privacy rights Mafioso of a Bush Administration -- even if it means, among other exciting ventures, taking off for theMoon with eight nations. With the presidential election less than four months away, it baffles the minds of many Democrats as to why over 18 million Hillary voters in their disgust of Obama would even remotely think about casting their ballots for the anti-affirmative action, corporate welfare, job killing Carly Fiorina suppwhoreted Republican candidate, John McCain, over the only anti-corporate welfare candidate running, Ralph Nader. If the PUMA PAC crew is so dedicated to democracy as they say on their website, why wouldn’t they all file over to a thinking anti-corporate welfare, third party candidate? As talented American software engineers, IT, financial and journalism professionals are increasingly given the sack to be replaced by millions of cheap, third-world workers to take their jobs here at home, it is a wonder why any self-described Democrat would ever consider voting for either candidate who both support outsourcing, McBama.
Last week, Barack Obama enjoyed the overwhelming support of 200,000 Germans – yes, REAL ones --- by traveling all the way over to The Hinterland to get it. (Many Team Obama fans are even wondering if annexing Germany as the fifty-first State mind not be a bad idea.) Think it- you’ll be it! This is, after all, the only candidate peddling “hope” and as sure as eating a waffleand refusing press chit-chat in a Scranton diner,one can dream… even when the harsh reality is both candidates (McCain and Obama) offer the promise of more disappearing jobs, access to healthcare, and corporate welfare programs to decimate America’s middle class. The only difference is that one candidate attempts to do it by getting Joe-Sixpack to willingly pick up a shovel and dig his own grave.
Can you guess which one?
With the Democratic Convention just around the corner, Obama’s foreign oration dress-rehearsal to a stadium sized audience was, to say the very least, an overwhelming success. Of course, the unkindest cut of all would be to remotely intimate that Bush is an easy act to follow, and yours truly has, if nothing else -- always maintained that if any soto voce can mesmerize a crowd by saying just about anything, it is Barack Obama.
But here is what one Hillary supporter had to say in this No Quarter blog post about voting Democratic in November:
“This really isn’t about Hillary or Obama as much as it is about democracy and the democratic process (small d). I do think Obama is a bad candidate and I think Hillary is a GREAT candidate, but what has made me leave the Party is their corrupt machinations during the primaries. The undemocratic actions of these people are bad enough, but what really is pushing me toward McCain is that I believe the Democrats would not have divided their own party and stolen people’s votes to try to get this inappropriate man in the WH unless they have some sinister, autocratic agenda they want to implement. The country has been so stratified that lots of Americans think we must have a Democrat to counter the Bush mistakes, but if you just look around at Democratic officeholders in the country, many are just as criminal and opportunistic as Republicans under Bush. I believe Barack Obama would be worse than Bush.”
After eight horrendous years of Bush Administration thuggery here and around the globe, the new Democratic “Leader of the Free World” presidential contender did more with this Berlin speech to erase eight years of embarrassment and oppression with his trademark “meet the new guy and get recharged” brand of whitewash to cover up the failed Bush Administration. But Obama’s peeps know that starving people are hungry for change and sometimes, the plebians get so hungry for “change and hope” that the starvation clouds their ability to see that what we actually have here, folks, is an economic trainwreck that feeds itself on the continued sell-off of blue collar and now white collar jobs. It is amazing how many self-described progressive blogs including AlterNet, Salon, The Nation and others go out of their way to cover up or ignore the number one issue of the day: Increasing immigration with decreasing numbers of jobs.
With skyrocketing costs of food, gas, housing, healthcare and travel, none of this would be a problem if Americans were afforded the right to at least apply their educations to meaningful, well paid jobs. People all around this country are losing their jobs due to legalized economic policies that open up the floodgates of immigration to decrease wages and take jobs and homes from Americans here while the Democrats approve and/or continue to stick their heads in the sand.
To paraphrase populist Huey P. Long to the Robber Baron industrialists and "free market" capitalists ruling America in 1920's:
"You got into the banquet room first, ahead of everybody else, and you ate all you could hold. You got plenty to take home to your children, and even to your children's children. But then you loaded up all that leftover food, way more than you could possibly eat, or your children could eat, or your children's children could eat [pause for effect], or WEAR, or USE, or LIVE IN, and you left with it! And you left an entire room of people hungry! Now you go back into that room and you put some of that food back on the table for the rest of us."
When it comes to reevaluating our free-market economy as it relates to the everyday lives of American citizens, for the first time in modern history, human capital is being equated with spare parts and traded on the open market, degrading and taking our collective human net worth along with it.
Wise free-marketers will see the economic parallels between current times and the 1920's and unless we want another Huey P. Long - style strong arm dictator, citizens here and not in someone else’s country like Germany must hold these candidates and their corporate welfare enablers accountable to demand labor reforms no matter which party takes the White House and Congress in '08. That, or get out your jackboots and goosestep right along with the One Party of Big Money Leader to digging your own economic graves.
“...we are a country that chooses the harder right over the easy wrong."
-President Barack Obama, on healthcare “reform”
Will Obama Choose the "Hard Right"?
Haha! Barry speaks in ominous parables...
Will the “harder Right” prevail in this life or death struggle for over eighty million Americans without access to quality healthcare? While Obama demands Congress move quickly on healthcare reform, he revealed today that “we are a country that chooses the harder right over the easy wrong.” The man either got that right or he speaks with forked tongue. In this case, the “easy wrong” would likely be Single Payer or any form of universal healthcare that would benefit U.S. citizens and stick it to an industry (Insurance and EHR) that profits off of the death and demise of Americans and the costly, privacy invasive gov't. mandated record/data mining technology that forces Americans to subsidize fat technocrats. (BTW - corporations developing Electronic Health Records (EHRs) are notorious outsourcers/insoucers.)
As LWOH reported here and here and here, The Obama healthcare “reform” plan is a costly payday for Stimulus bill, AARA sucking technocrats and DOES NOTHING to provide smart, affordable healthcare to American citizens as would Single Payer, as discussed by Ralph Nader in his recent essay Single Payer Taboo.
The “harder Right” is indeed holding fast in the Senate debate against healthcare reform, and Obama's bipartisan, One Big Party of Money healthcare reform plan to enrich his techno-elite buddies at Micrsoft, Google and Oracle et.al to develop patient record snoop technology DOES NOT PROVIDE HEALTHCARE for our citizenry. If only Obama would ditch those Old Colonial sleazoids, but nooooo...
“Obama and leading Democrats ruled universal, single-payer coverage off the table before debate even began. Instead they've focused on taxing more, rationing care, placing profits above human need, disdaining vital change, shifting the cost burden to individuals and requiring everyone to be insured; imposing fines up to $1000 for non-compliance, and making a broken system even worse.
On June 10, Physicians for a National Health Program advisor Walter Tsou told the House Education and Labor Committee:
"Attempting to reconcile the dual imperatives of universal coverage and cost control through alternative methods besides single payer is an exercise in futility. When some congressional leaders declare that single payer is off the table, they are in effect saying that insurers will be protected, leaving the pain to patients, taxpayers and health care providers."”
There are TWO crucial changes that must be implemented in the U.S. for America's white collar middle class to survive:
Provide Single Payer heathcare for U.S. citizens – everybody in, nobody out
Is Obama committed to standing up for the citizens of this country or he just another crooked president, ready and willing to serve his elitist, technocrat frat boys club at the expense of America's middle class?
THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF “EAT SHIT AND DIE” is pulling out all the stops this week on healthcare “reform.” Let the good cop/bad cop games begin!This week, the healthcare reform pro-con TV ads begin, while the Dems roll out the concerned 'mommy' with abused housewife denial syndrome (see Ted Kennedy's moving plea for healthcare reform) and the GOP plays the fiscally conservative 'daddy' who would rather hold onto his wallet and watch his grown, unemployed son die of AIDS than admit access to jobs and preventative care could have saved him. By now, the plebes are onto the fact that the BOSS (Pharma/Insurance/Tech lobbies and their global paymasters) says “no way, you whiny, middle class Americans – get over yourselves...From the LA Times (emphasis mine“good cop/bad cop”) article below:
GOOD COP (President Obama, D-White House): "We always knew that passing healthcare reform wouldn't be easy," he (Obama) said today. "There is a tendency toward inertia in this town. . . . But we are a country that chooses the harder right over the easy wrong."
And
BAD COP (GOP): “The Republican National Committee, airing a new TV ad opposing the president's healthcare plans and launching a website accusing Obama of experimenting with the nation's economy -- www.barackobamaexperiment.com -- is waging a campaign of its own.
"We do not allow one political leader to risk our healthcare system," RNC Chairman Michael Steele said in an address today at the National Press Club in Washington. "It is time to hit the pause button on this administration's reckless experiment with America's economy and our healthcare system."
Got that? Mommy talks a good game, but daddy just has to say “no” while poor Barry walks away after four years with lousy approval ratings and a boatload of goodies...Meanwhile, what will the Dems do now? Where will all of their disillusioned, unemployed, sick and huddled masses at the Kool-Aid stands without access to quality healthcare go? The GOP? HA!
If Obama were truly serious about making healthcare available to all, he would demand it and stand up for it. But it looks more like business as usual, with U.S. taxpayer, leeching, global elites (and deft facilitation by U.S. Dem and Repub politicans who profit) have decided to kill off what's left of America's white collar middle class by denying them real access to affordable, quality health care. While Hillary is likely profiteering from her 24/7 Mumbai Monsoon Moves visit to India by giving away what's left of American white collar jobs to India, Obama's approval ratings are simultaneously plummeting.
And Americans are waking up to smell this sewer of good cop/bad cop tactics against middle class Americans from the One Big Money Party - the Democrats and their craven twin, the GOP. Despite the fact that now, more than ever would be the BEST political moment for the Dems to seize the day by standing up for U.S. workers and for U.S. healthcare, is the smart money on that play?
Wouldn't it be grand if Obama would tell these backbiters to all go to hell? It's not like he doesn't have the people of America behind him or anything...
(Special Thanks to Dee Lite - Back by Popular Demand)
2Truthy's Whirlwind Weekly Roundup
Obama Dresses Down Chamber, GOP Congressman Loses Shirt for Dressing Down on Craigslist, AOL Bags Arianna, Hizzoner Rahm's 4 Letter Word and Mubarak Out
Thumbs Up to President Obama. While Ralph Nader, this country's most formidable consumer and civil rights advocate ripped Obama a new one for his Chamber of Commerce speech on Monday here, (h/t Dandelion Salad) we must applaud the president for giving it the good old college try by prodding those ungrateful, transnational bound American oligarchs who, you know, love lots and lots of heaping government U.S. taxpayer subsidies but could do a WHOLE LOT more to “reform” unsustainable outsourcing and insourcing hiring practices by stopping the influx of cheap labor that discriminates against American citizens:
“As you know, it's not always profitable in the short-term for you to invest in basic research. That's why government has traditionally helped invest in this kind of science, planting the seeds that ultimately grew into technologies from computer chips to the internet."
Obama then explains to these merciless ingrates how the benefits should go to U.S. workers as he appealed to their "spirit of patriotism" and "sense of mutual regard and common obligation" that has carried us before in harder times:
“If the government is going to invest in innovation, that innovation should lead to new jobs and manufacturing on our shores. Now is the time to invest in America."
Arianna Huffington Sells Out to AOL. Who knew? The author of PIGS AT THE TROUGH knows how to bringhome the bacon. Six years after the diva celebrity of pop-politico “progressive” blogozine tabloid journalism hit the nets with her signature Huffington Post,it's about time she cashed in on that thing which rapidly spiraled down into a filthy lucre driven censorship pit. Who cares if she stealthily exploited the Left and lured millions and millions of unwashed, faithful, hopeful, left-leaning, downstairs commenters along with many upstairs bloggers and investigative journalists like Al Giordano who offered up their bloggy goodness FOR FREE who might not be getting a cut of her ba-ba-ba-booty? What – did they think the author of PIGS AT THE TROUGH was The Good Witch of the North or The Easter Bunny or something?
Rahm Emanuel Says He'll Lead Chicago's “New Economy”. And he will because Hizzonner Rahm is the guy who tells it like it fucking IS, bitches! He said “I know Chicago is up to facing the truth”. Aside from his ambitious and worthy plans to clean up crime (code for “the ghetto”), here's the next rare town hall meeting question: What will he truthfully do to clean up the cheap labor lobby and putthat 4 Letter Word JOBS thing on rails for educated middle class unemployed/underemployed citizens?
Married GOP Congressman Dude Loses His Shirt (Seat) Over Shirtless Pictures on Craigslist. Since the married, upstate New York Republican Congressman's dirty sexy shirtless photo was allegedly directed at a LADY, this story naturally has less legs. Must have been a slow news week for this one to hit wires, but then, this morning's biggest news to bust the pipes...something about an Egyptian dictator...
Mubarak is OUT! No more Pharaoh Phodder now for millions of Egyptians or let the good times roll!
If bad apples were dimes, then beggars would fly…and not ride the bus.
All it takes are a couple of bad apples. In his new book The Wrecking Crew: How ConservativesRule, author Thomas Frank describes how a ruling coalition of conservatives has turned public policy into a private sector bidding war. Instead of enacting policies to reduce big government, which is the calling card of conservative ideology, it has instead simply sold it off -- deregulating some industries and defunding others. Frank’s new book highlights how our “misgovernment” has been brought to you by ideology, not incompetence.
Yours truly has written extensively on the hubris and arrogance that has defined American ruling class elites and wannabes across industries and government, particularly the gross bedfellows of sociopathic high tech “leaders” and the entertainment industry where in Silicon Valley, since 1992, venture capitalist backed technology start-ups got a leg up from Washington (oh, there’s gotta be at least one big, fat insufferable bad apple who made a killing in tech stock with family ties to the White House) as the floodgates of cheap foreign labor opened up courtesy H-1b visa legislation, resulting in millions of lost jobs for white collar Americans. In his book, Frank describes how the philosophy of such hubris minded frat-boys under the banner of entrepreneurship has “made a cult of outsourcing” in our government and how privatization has literally wrecked established federal operations. As these financial, entrepreneurial, and political elites personally amassed enormous wealth, Washington’s politicians and lobbyists took a cue from these corporate hucksters. Frank explains that this has been no accident:
“They deliberately piled up an Everest of debt in order to force the government into crisis. The ruination they have wrought has been thorough; it has been a professional job. Washington itself has been remade into a golden landscape of super-wealthy suburbs and gleaming lobbyist headquarters—the wages of government-by-entrepreneurship practiced so outrageously by figures such as Jack Abramoff. It is no coincidence, Frank argues, that the same politicians who guffaw at the idea of effective government have installed a regime in which incompetence is the rule. Nor will the country easily shake off the consequences of deliberate misgovernment through the usual election remedies. Obsessed with achieving a lasting victory, conservatives have taken pains to enshrine the free market as the permanent creed of state.”
The common misconception for many, particularly during this election season -- is that Democrats are somehow immune from the hubris disease and fail to look at how bipartisan pleas from both major candidates are indistinguishable sales pitches for more expanded government meant to benefit the ruling class:
“Democrats, for their part, have tried to explain the flood of misgovernment as part of a "culture of corruption," a phrase at once obviously true and yet so amorphous as to be quite worthless. Republicans have an even simpler answer: government failed, they tell us, because it is the nature of government enterprises to fail. As for the great corruption cases of recent years, they cluck, each is merely a one-of-a-kind moral lapse unconnected to any particular ideology -- an individual bad apple with no effect on the larger barrel.”
Frank describes the children’s story We Are the Government, generations of about the tale of a smiling dime whose wanderings were meant to introduce everyone to the government and all that it does for us: the miner who digs the ore for the dime has his "health and safety" supervised by one branch of the government; the bank in which the dime is stored enjoys the protection of a different branch, which "sees that banks are safe places for people to keep their money"; the dime gets paid in tax on a gasoline sale; it then lands in the pocket of a Coast Guard lieutenant, who takes it overseas and spends it on a parrot, which is "quarantined for ninety days" when the lieutenant brings it home. All of which is related with the blithest innocence, as though taxes on gasoline and quarantines on parrots were so obviously beneficial that they required little further explanation.
But will we follow the dime as it wends its way through our present-day, crumbling capital? The dime story now is actually the reverse of what it was in 1945:
“That old dime was all about service, about the things government could do for us. But the new dime is about profit -- about the superiority of private enterprise, about the huge sums that can be squeezed out of federal operations. Instead of symbolizing good government, the dime now shows us the wrecking crew in full swing.”
Where our government was once the Star of the Sea as American citizens took pride in knowing we once upon a time had built a “vast machinery” designed to protect our interests, safety and welfare, now we cringe at this retooled government vehicle, that has been “reengineered into a device for our exploitation.” Beware of the wolf in bipartisan clothing, one that wears green when the dress code calls for basic black. As Chris Hedges speculates below, the murky logic behind our corporate run, bipartisan government declaring a war on Iran would indeed hurt Americans:
“There are huge corporations that make obscene profits from human misery. They run our health care industry. They run our oil and gas companies. They run our bloated weapons industry. They run Wall Street and the major investment firms. They run our manufacturing firms. They also, ominously, run our government.”
Meanwhile, citizens here, curiously on the Left – are riding along on this broken down highway, waving past the wrecking ball where everyone wants to be king, and nobody wants to fix the car. As smart and brave candidates like Ralph Nader continue to ask all the right questions but get shut out of National debates by the Democratic candidate, Senator "I'll drill to that" Obama a few of us are left to wonder,
"I don't care about my personal legacy," Nader says. "I care about how much justice is advanced in America and in our world day after day." -Ralph Nader
