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The Hypocrisy of Paul Ryan, Part II

August 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Stimulus? What stimulus?

On Friday, August 17, The New York Times ran a short article entitled “Ryan Said He Erred In Seeking Stimulus Money.” It related that Ryan now considers it a mistake to have asked for Federal stimulus funds in 2009. The article reports that Ryan had earlier denied asking for money from the $787 billion bill on behalf of companies in his district in Wisconsin. But the Boston Globe confirmed that he had written to the Federal Energy Department requesting financing for two companies to develop so-called “green jobs.”
“No, I never asked for stimulus,” Ryan said in an interview with WCPO-TV in Cincinnati . He and Mitt Romney have both denounced the stimulus as an example of Obama’s failure to restore the economy. The Congressional Budget Office said the stimulus created 1.4 million to 3.3 million jobs. In a more recent television interview, Ryan said that he did not recall writing the letters. Later his office issued a statement that he had since checked the letters.
“They were treated as constituent service requests in the same way matters involving Social Security and Veterans Affairs are handled,” Ryan said in the statement. “This is why I didn’t recall the letters earlier. But they should have been handled differently and I take responsibility for that. Regardless, it’s clear that the Obama stimulus did nothing to stimulate the economy, and now the president is asking to do it all over again.”
In other words, Ryan was for the stimulus before he was against it. What chutzpah! If Obama lets him get away with this, it will be a pity because it show Ryan to be the total hypocrite that he is. It is astonishing that the media is letting him get away with stuff like this. This guy speaks out of both sides of his mouth just as Romney does. They are quite a pair. When Romney saw Ryan, he knew he had found a kindred spirit in deviousness and deception..

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The Hypocrisy of Paul Ryan

August 17, 2012 By 1 Comment

Jesus used the word “hypocrite” with great effect. And it is a word perfectly suited to describing Paul Ryan, much as Jesus used it against the false piety of the Pharisees. The sanctimonious Paul Ryan wraps himself in his Catholicism even as he advocates policies that will be devastating to the poor, the old, and the young–the latter who would be deprived of their much-needed Pell Grants.
Until only recently Ryan spoke of how he required members of his staff to read “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand, the book that is the basis for his free market, anti-governent philosophy. Mercilessly attacked by the Catholic Bishops of America for the cruelty of his budget as well as by a prominent priest at Georgetown, who let him have it in no uncertain terms, Ryan turned around by 180 degrees. Now he says that he read Rand’s novels when he was young and found them to be “entertaining” but that the inspiration for his values is Thomas Aquinas. He argues that Aquinas favored local, community-based solutions over those offered by the state. He is now going around the country preaching about the difficult life of the poor. A lot he cares about them. This hypocrite bows and scrapes before Sheldon Adelson, the casino billionaire who plans to spend 100 million dollars to defeat Obama. Ryan went to a fund-raiser at the Sands in Las Vegas to kiss the ring of the man who pulls the strings of the Republican Party. After the now-convicted businessman, Denis Troha, contributed $60,000 to Ryan, Ryan phoned up the Bureau of Indian affairs to tell them that the people in his district supported the casino Troha wanted to build there. Troha now says that Ryan told him personally that he considered the project “inappropriate” for the district. LOL.
Troha pleaded guilty to making unlawful contributions to Bush and to some Democratic office-holders to get support for another casino project. Ryan was not charged with wrongdoing but it is clear that his phone call to the BIA was a quid pro quo for that sixty grand he got from Troha. Is this the kind of guy you want to be a heartbeat away from the presidency? I can hardly imagine that Saint Thomas Aquinas would have endorsed this kind of behavior.

 

Ryan is not what he appears to be. He is no clean-as-a-whistle boy scout who is great with figures and

... if you're a gazillionaire.

a terrific policy wonk. That is a myth concocted by the media and the Republicans. He is a calculating, ambitious character who schemes with Eric Cantor to bring down John Boehner so Cantor can become Speaker and Ryan can ultimately be president. Should Romney lose, Ryan will hit the campaign trail for the Republican nomination in 2016. Ryan really is a snake in the grass posing as a statesman. Beware.

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Romney’s Choice

August 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Snake oil, anyone?

The Rasmussen poll indicated that only 37 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of Paul Ryan, so one might think that this was a suicidal choice. The Democrats are licking their chops. But all of this could well be premature. Ryan will energize the campaign and if he makes a terrific speech at the convention, which I am certain he will, Romnney’s poll numbers will go up the way John McCain’s did after Sarah Palin’s speech. But whereas Palin proved to be a liability, Ryan should be able to handle himself quite well. This could sustain the momentum.

 

Ryan’s job is to keep attacking spending, something designed to appeal to independent voters who could start to like him more. And no question, spending will be a big issue as the Republicans will assert that it’s the spending and the deficit that are causing the sluggish economy and the eight percent unemployment. Ryan will also keep up the mantra that there should be no tax increases because tax increases hurt the economy. By cutting taxes, he will argue, the economy will grow and there will be more revenue to balance the budget and pay down the debt.

 

Americans have short memories so the Democrats are going to have to remind the voters that this is

Something D-O-O economics? Voo-Doo economics?

what George H.W. Bush called “voodoo economics.” Reagan’s budget director David Stockman now blames the Republicans from the time of Reagan until today for the economic mess the country is in.

There is no question that many will buy into Ryan’s argument since very few even remember the Laffer Curve, which predicted that a cut in taxes would bring in more revenue. It was false then and it is false now. As for an austerity budget, you have only to look at Britain to see that this doesn’t work. British growth has actually decreased and they are heading towards another recession. If you’re going to cut spending, you have to do it, as Terry Sanford used to say, “under the supervision of a physician.” What he meant by that was that drastic cuts were like a crash diet–you will end up putting all the weight back on. Drastic cuts will hurt growth and lead to a bigger deficit.

 

But more than this, Ryan is not sincere in saying that Romney and the Republicans will be able to tackle the deficit. He actually favors a dramatic increase in defense spending, which shows him to be nothing but a typical congressman who plays the same old Washington game–give Lockhheed Martin whatever it wants and cozy up to its hordes of lobbyists and the generals who are capable of undermining their own Secretary of Defense. They and the hacks in the Defense Department will go through the revolving door and end up working for Lockheed even as Lockheed executives will end up with important positions in the Defense Department. The lobbyists will assure the flow of campaign contributions to congressmen who, like Ryan, do their bidding. Ryan is not a breath of fresh air. He gives off the same old stench of the Iron Triangle that runs Washington.

 

Ryan is often praised for his courage in taking on entitlements. But that is also untrue. His plan to privatize Medicare (a terrible idea in any event) will, he admits, not kick in for another ten years. Where is the savings in that? And cutting back on benefits from Social Security and extending the retirement age will for certain be met with considerable hostility. Ryan has given every indication that he is backing away from that position.

 

Paul Ryan is a phony and if the voters buy his snake oil, they will get what they deserve. The only question is who is the bigger phony, Ryan or Romney? There is a wonderful line from Preston Sturgess’s “Hail the Conquering Hero.” ”The phony aways wins until a bigger phony comes along and then he wins.” But I don’t believe Obama is a phony.  He has made mistakes and has his faults. He is a politician, with all that entails but he has done his best to represent all of the people, not special interests. The American people better wise up or they will end up in a worse condition than they are in now.

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Eye Of Newt

December 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Why NOT me? These other guys are nuts.

It seems like a century ago when Newt Gingrich led the charge to overthrow decades of Democratic rule in the House of Representatives using his Contract for America as the blueprint for an agenda that included balancing the budget and term limits. At the time, the Democrats were stale and liberalism an obsolete political philosophy that had hardened into political correctness. What Gingrich did was nothing less than to revolutionize American politics, turning Tim O’Neil’s maxim that all politics was local on its head. Thanks to Gingrich, all politics was now national and he ran the Congressional campaign as if it were a British parliamentary election. The Republicans won and America has never been the same.

But no sooner had he been sworn in as Speaker, he opted to accept a book deal from Rupert Murdock for millions of dollars, violating the rules of the House. Term limits vanished from the agenda. Dick Morris, Bill Clinton’s close advisor, told Clinton to adopt the Republican agenda by balancing the budget and changing the welfare system to end permanent dependence. It worked and Clinton won reelection.

Then Gingrich blew it by closing down the government. The Republicans lost numerous seats in Congress and he resigned. His legacy was his censure by Congress for ethics violations and his party’s defeat. Most wrote him off as finished in politics and it appeared as if he wrote himself off as well. His extramarital conduct became the stuff of legend and he vanished from the political scene, starting a consulting business and authoring countless books, including works of fiction. He married his last mistress and became a Catholic.

When he announced his candidacy for president, most dismissed him off as a has-been with absolutely no chance of winning. As if to confirm this, he took his wife on a cruise in the Greek Islands and most of his staff quit. He announced his intention of staying in the race but this was counted as bravado. He had no money and no organization, yet he had sufficient numbers in the polls to get into the debates, during which he actually sounded sane and he began to attract attention. The radical right, in its quest to stop Mitt Romney, first went with Michele Bachmann, whose over-the-top comments made her seem loony. Then they supported Rick Perry, who turned out to be an idiot. There was the flirtation with Herman Cain, whose campaign imploded in the wake of allegations by women of sexual misconduct. Because Ron Paul opposed aid to Israel, he was anathema to the Evangelicals so his poll numbers have remained in the low teens. Finally there was Newt, who espoused conservative values with sufficient clarity during the debates that he began to pick up support. No one was more surprised by this than Newt himself, who was running in order to keep charging thousands for speaking engagements, receive lucrative book contracts and increase the clientele of his consulting business. It came out that he has made millions as a consultant to the health-care industry and to Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac, but none of this halted his sudden rise.

This was a “new” Newt, observers said, more mature and stable, whose new-found religious faith made his past personal transgressions fade into insignificance; he had gone to confession and been forgiven.

So far, his poll numbers have not been affected by the negative ads attacking him in Iowa since most people are concerned about the economy and think Romney is a Wall Street insider, a representative of the old GOP Establishment, which the Tea Party despises. In their search for a candidate of their own, they settled on Newt, with his unadulterated support for capitalism.

But is this really a new Newt? Remember Richard Nixon’s comeback, when commentators described him as the “new Nixon”?

No, that's the old Newt. I'm the new Newt.

He was more self-assured and less strident and looked comfortable in his skin. He bested both Nelson Rockefeller and Ronald Reagan for the Republican nomination and won a close election against Hubert Humphrey. In the wake of the disastrous McGovern campaign, he won his long-sought landslide and seemed to have more power than any president in the past, including Lyndon Johnson, who had self-destructed.

But this was no new Nixon at all. It was the same old Nixon, devious, dishonest and vicious. Under pressure, he cracked and became the first president in American history to resign. Gingrich is made of the same stuff and the Republicans will nominate him at their peril. But what he’s got is an ability to throw the base raw meat the way no other candidate can. His remarks on the Palestinians show he knows how to appeal to key constituencies of the GOP in a powerful way. It would be a mistake to count him out because, like Nixon, he has a subterranean connection to the worst impulses of many Americans and is unafraid to exploit that connection. Democrats, gleeful at the idea that Newt could be the Republican nominee, should remember that they could get what they wish for and come to regret it.

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The Curse Of West Texas

September 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment

West Texas Cowboy, just like "W", but without the brains.

When some people lament the possibility of yet another Texan as president, they need to consider another aspect of this provenance. The problem is not Texas. Ron Paul is a member of the House of Representatives from Texas. The great Barbara Jordon was from Texas. No, the problem is West Texas. Lyndon Johnson was from West Texas and George W. Bush invented himself as a West Texan. And Rick Perry is from West Texas.

West Texas is notorious for producing recalcitrant and bellicose men. They have that swagger that Bush so exemplified, the cowboy walk that makes them look as through they are headed for a shootout. They are uncompromising and stubborn and brook no criticism. When their minds are made up, they are made up. Around the rest of Texas, they are both loathed and admired because of their combination of strength and recalcitrance.

Lyndon Johnson, whose strength enabled him to get the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Medicare and Medicaid through Congress, also got America deep into the Vietnam War. He dressed down military officers who came to see him in the White House if he didn’t like what they had to say, making them stand throughout the meeting and then summarily dismissing them. For all his greatness, he could be mean, vindictive and petty. He liked to be seen riding his horse, high in the saddle. The result of this West Texas mentality was that there was no criticizing him for what he was doing in Vietnam. The CIA so feared him that they doctored the body count so he wouldn’t come down on them. In a once famous incident, when Johnson was touring Vietnam, an officer said to him, “Mr. President, this is your helicopter,” indicating the one Johnson was to board. Johnson’s reply was, “Son, they are all my helicopters.” And Johnson, much as Bush won the presidency by a few votes because of what was fundamentally a hoax, won election to the Senate from Texas by a handful of votes in what most regard as a fixed election, leading Texans to call him “Landslide Lyndon.” Johnson’s lawyer in that episode was Abe Fortas, whom Johnson later appointed to the Supreme Court and was his choice for Chief Justice until Fortas had to resign because of ethics problems

Pete Seegers’s famous song performed at Woodstock, “The Big Muddy” summed up Johnson’s incredible stubbornness, even when reality was staring him in the face. He kept leading the country in a disastrous war that could not be won unless he nuked North Vietnam. All his bombing raids in the north came to nothing.

Next, there was George W. Bush, who was so determined to be seen as a West Texan that he began speaking

I say, I say, I say, vote fer me!!!

like one and wearing cowboy boots to erase his Andover, Yale and Harvard Business School patina as the scion of a wealthy and powerful New England family. George H. W. Bush, who settled in Texas, was forever the New England patrician and Bush wanted none of it. He managed to become president after a fraudulent election that he “won” by some three hundred-and-something votes in Florida, giving him a victory in the Electoral College while he lost the popular vote. When his “win” was confirmed by a weird Supreme Court decision that went entirely along party line affiliation (except for Stevens who went with the Democrats because he thought Gore would win and name him Chief Justice) Bush morphed into Johnson and got America into the war in Iraq, dismissing General Shinseki for telling him he was going in with too few troops. Like Johnson, there was no talking to “mission accomplished” Bush. George Tenet, the Director of CIA, was so terrified of him that he made his famous “slam dunk” response when Bush asked him whether or not Saddam Hussein had WMDs. And Bush was every bit as arrogant as Johnson, ordering Carl Rove to hang up his jacket at cabinet meetings. The argument that Cheney was really the boss was untrue. Bush was like Henry V, determined to invade France, a project that while successful in the short run, proved to be a disaster in the long run. He ordered the disbanding of the Iraqi army, guaranteeing armed resistance, arranged for Iraq to be governed like a colony, with Americans holding key government positions and George Bremer functioning as a Viceroy. Only when the Iraqis themselves demanded elections did he make democracy the objective of the invasion, after it was clear there really were no WMDs after all.

Which brings us to Rick Perry, the West Texan par excellence. Even in a well-tailored suit, he still wears

Nuke Iran, Yeee Haaawww!!!!

cowboy boots and a gigantic cowboy belt buckle. You have to know exactly where this dude is coming from. And this one has a chip on his shoulder every bit as big as Johnson’s or Bush’s. Johnson’s chip was that the eastern elite looked down on his as a yokel. He knew full well that Jacqueline Kennedy referred to him as “Colonel Cornpone” behind his back. He went to South West Texas State Teachers College and he believed all the Ivy League liberals looked down on him no matter what he achieved. The anger in him was palpable and it exacerbated his aggressiveness.

W has an anger that cannot be assuaged. He knows full well that his parents’ hopes rested with older brother Jeb, but only when Jeb failed to win election to the United States Senate from Texas, did W emerge as the second choice. After he became president, he never consulted with his father and remained distant from him. That rage, like Johnson’s, led him to adopt a bellicose foreign policy in which he offended most of the world and launched a war because of made-up reasons, much as Johnson made up the Tonkin attack on American vessels that led to the resolution justifying military force in Vietnam.

Rick Perry is a true West Texas Aggie, a product of Texas A& M, a university that bears the brunt of “Aggie’ jokes based on the presumed stupidity of its undergraduates, many from, you guessed it, West Texas. When Perry said that if the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, were to come to Texas, “We would treat him real ugly,” that was Perry in a nutshell. It must be remembered that when Johnson was Majority Leader of the Senate, he proclaimed in a speech that “American boys should not fight Asian boys’ wars.” But as president, he filed that away somewhere in the limbo of a desk drawer and sent five hundred thousand American troops to Vietnam. Perry will behave in like manner. And much like Johnson, he will appoint his cronies and contributors to high positions.  Perry knows the elites in Texas look down on him because he grew up dirt poor and is an Aggie. The Yalie Bushes have nothing but contempt for him and he knows it.

Rick Perry says America should never intervene militarily unless it is “absolutely in America’s national interest.” Already, the old Bush neo-cons are attaching themselves to him, plotting a war with Iran. Perry will really get off on that. He will use the threat of Iran’s nukes as a justification. Bill Keller and Thomas Friedman, the elites of the New York Times, supported the war in Iraq, calling for the invasion from their roosts at the top of the elitist tower. Now, they say how sorry they are that they ever did that. Keller uses his reluctance to look like a Latte drinking liberal defeatist as his justification. But once the reasons for the war include not only those Iranian nukes, but also the existential threat to Israel, they will be egging Perry on. And he will lap it up, his six shooters in each hand blazing away. If America elects another West Texan, it will get what  it deserves.

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BUFFET TO BUY GREECE

September 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Opa!!!

Billionaire investor Warren Buffet has announced his intention to buy Greece in order to save the global economy. The purchase price, still to be announced, is expected to be in the neighborhood of two hundred billion dollars, which he plans to raise through a consortium of investors, including Pincus, Warburg and the Blackstone Group. It is Buffet’s contention that for too long, countries like Greece failed to run themselves as “for profit” entities.

Buffet will incorporate Greece as a corporation in Delaware. The new company, Greece, Inc., will abolish the present government and replace it with a board of directors made up of prominent members of the international business community who will begin immediately to conduct a search for its first CEO, with Sergio Marchionnne speculated to be the leading candidate. The Italian Canadian turnaround artist currently heads FIAT, the Italian automaker that has taken over Chrysler and that also includes the luxury brand, Maserati. He also has his eye on reviving SAAB, the former Swedish automaker that has fallen on hard times.

“We see Marchionne as a perfect fit, “Buffet explained. “If anyone can turn around Greece, he’s the one.” Greece, Inc. will be strictly non-union, with a pay scale designed to attract foreign investors. Several Chinese companies have already expressed interest in starting several manufacturing entities, including toy and textile manufacturing. A consortium from Macao has also expressed interest in creating and expanding casino gambling on the Greek Islands, designed to bring in considerable revenue.

In order to combat the lack of a work ethic in Greece, the new company’s motto will be “work or starve.” All state subsidies will end and workers will be expected to work at a minimum wage. They will also be responsible for their own medical care and retirement. The education system will be entirely revamped, with schools dedicated to training workers for specific industries. The universities will drop all extraneous subjects, such as literature and philosophy and will, instead, train young Greeks to enter the work force as employable professionals, particularly as engineers and managers. “We can’t afford to waste money on culture,” Buffet mused. “What Greece needs now are businesses that can compete on the world market.”

Top on the list for moneymaking will be tourism, but on an entirely different level from the past. “Greece must

Excuse me, but did you say "theme park"?

cease to be quaint,” Buffet exclaimed over a lunch of steak and potatoes at his favorite restaurant in Omaha, Nebraska. “We will develop ancient Greek theme parks, such as Sparta, where tourists can enjoy the recreation of the Spartan tradition of fighting, done in traditional costumes. “We expect to attract wealthy lesbians to holiday on Lesbos, where there will be lavish entertainments based on the poetry of Sappho. In other venues, there will be recreations of the Iliad and the Odyssey, including special events exhibits for children. “Disney has expressed a considerable interest in developing the theme parks,” Buffet related. “And there will be luxury hotels with casinos and expensive restaurants that will specialize in the cuisine of ancient Greece. Planned also is a recreation of Vesuvius erupting and destroying Pompeii. Greek tragedies, rewritten to accommodate the sensibilities of American tourists, including happy endings, will be performed at imitation Greek outdoor theaters, where snacks will be sold by Greek youths in traditional costumes.

A special feature, designed to attract a wide audience, will be a staged trial of Socrates, including a mock version of his suicide by drinking imitation hemlock. And tourists will be able to wander through olive groves to hear Plato and Aristotle teaching, but in English instead of ancient Greek. A reproduction of both the Academy and the Lyceum will have comfortable chairs and tables and pleasant restaurants and bars.

There will be a mass expansion of the olive industry and the production of Greek wine, excluding retsina, because of its harsh taste. There will be a major campaign to reintroduce Metaxa brandy, Fidel Castro’s favorite. Castro has agreed to tape a commercial for Metaxa, in which he explains that he never touches rum, and enjoys Cuban cigars only with Metaxa.

Buffet expects to take Greece, Inc. public in two years, paying down Greek’s debt in five. “After that “ he exclaimed, “It will be all profit all the time,” giving rise to countless jobs and a rising GDP. He sees limitless opportunities on the horizon, not just for Greece, but also for Ireland, Portugal and even Spain, if it should come to that. He envisions all of Europe as one vast theme park, including a mock European parliament. “I see this as a model for the world,” he concluded. “The nation state is basically obsolete. They keep going into deeper and deeper debt because they are run without a sound business model. That has to change.”

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YOUTH OF ISRAEL-FULL OF LIFE

August 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment

You get everything, we get nothing? That doesn't work for us.

The youth of Israel are full of life, putting young Americans to shame.  They are protesting the great disparity of wealth under the Netanyahu regime, which has seen stocks of the biggest Israeli companies increase in value by three hundred percent . While incomes of the great majority of Israelis have stagnated and prices from housing to cottage cheese have soared, Israeli youth have created a tent city in the middle of Tel Aviv and are making their voices heard.  One hundred and fifty thousand young Israelis recently demonstrated in Jerusalem, the largest protest in Israel’s history.

Denouncing “vulgar capitalism,” they point to the privatization of major companies, which has put them into the hands of a few wealthy Israelis, as typical of the state of affairs in Israel now.  There are six thousand millionaires and billionaires and, much like America, everyone else is struggling.  Ridiculed by the Israeli Establishment as a bunch of college kids reenacting Woodstock, the protesters are now supported by eighty percent of the population.  In a panic, Netanyahu canceled a scheduled trip to Poland to lobby against the recognition of a Palestinian state, promising change.  Opposition leader, Tzipi Livni, who once called for the privatization of “anything that moved,” has now repented.

On the surface, Netanyahu’s neo-liberal reforms have been successful.  Official unemployment is at five and a half percent, a remarkable figure.  Israel now has a favorable balance of payments, exporting more than it imports, when in the past it relied on foreign contributions to make up for its chronic deficits.  But on the negative side, twenty-four percent of Israelis live below the poverty line, with many living in squalor.  The growing ultra orthodox Jewish population is exacerbating the problem.  The men don’t work and the women, with little education, take low-paying, menial jobs.  They have gigantic families with ill-educated children who attend orthodox schools that have a medieval curriculum.  They also don’t serve in the military.

Because of their growing numbers, the reactionary ultra orthodox have a powerful political presence. They are determined to undermine the Israeli secular society that has created a modern state and oppose negotiations with the Palestinians, alleging a biblical mandate over all of the West Bank.  With Likud pandering to them and the center Kadima reluctant to take them on, the future of Israel is seriously in doubt.  This makes the tent city in Tel Aviv and the demonstrations all the more significant because the young people participating in them are predominantly secular.  They are fed up with what Israel has become.  While few of them wish to return to the socialism of the past, they are disgusted by the disparity of wealth and the arrogance of the rich.  Israel is no longer a family that takes care of its own, as it was intended to be.  Instead, it has become a mirror image of contemporary America, in which a handful of people control ninety percent of the wealth.

At a time when “liberal” is a dirty word in America, young Israelis are calling for an Israeli New Deal to create a more just society.  One can only hope they succeed because only a just Israel is an Israel that can survive and flourish.  It is also the only Israel that can come to terms with the Palestinians instead of living with the illusion of  “Greater Israel.”

But while young Israelis are demonstrating that they have the power to be heard, young Americans remain largely phlegmatic

American protest? Can't you see I'm busy!

and apathetic, even as their options become increasingly limited.  Burdened by college debt, they put their dreams on hold to take any job they can find and keep quiet.  Many of them don’t have health insurance, whereas in Israel everyone is still covered for free, something the reactionaries have not dared to alter.  Young Americans without college degrees can’t find jobs at all and because college tuitions are rising, more are electing not to go. Young blacks are dropping out of high school in large numbers, assuring the creation of a permanent underclass. Latinos are the group suffering most in the American economy as they lose jobs and can’t find others.

What is missing in America is a sense of solidarity.  The phony ideology of the right, promoted largely by cynical, wealthy Americans like the Koch brothers, is hypocritical.  These self-proclaimed conservatives think they can pay down the debt and balance the budget while increasing the defense budget and supporting the wars that have cost thousands of lives and have drained the wealth of the country, contributing mightily to the great budget deficit . The only person on the right who makes sense is Ron Paul, who has called for an end to the wars and the cutting of the defense budget.   A staunch libertarian, he has also called for gradual reforms of entitlements, unlike Paul Ryan, who has called for the privatization of Medicare.

Young Americans need to emulate the youth of Israel.  Youth of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your stupid governments.

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The Hypocrisy of Scott Walker

February 22, 2011 By Leave a Comment

See what happens when you tax-and-spend?


College dropout and governor of Wisconsin Scott Walker has exempted police and firefighters from his proposed legislation to strip government workers of their right to collectively bargain.  These are the more highly paid public sector workers and they have considerable political clout with Republicans whom they generally support and to whose campaigns they contribute. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the largest outside political contributor in the 2010 elections, outspent both the Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO and backed the Democrats in a last-ditch failed effort to stave off a Republican victory.  The police and firefighters negotiate separately and do not fall under the penumbra of the Democratic Party organization.

What Walker is doing is punishing the Democratic union members and rewarding the conservative, Republican-leaning cops and firemen. This is a political shot across the bow, a warning to the AFSCME not to do the same thing in 2012.  Republican governors across the country are following him.  This reminds me of a conversation I had with an important Republican operative about budget-cutting in bankrupt Nassau County on Long Island.  I said they had to get rid of a lot of county jobs, many of them patronage positions.  His eyes popped open as he replied, “Not Republican jobs!” And not for nothing have the Republicans refused to cut the sponsorship of NASCAR since the fans and the drivers are all on the right. It would be one thing if these Republican governors meant it but they don’t.  They are doing what they always do–playing hardball and rewarding their supporters.

Sure, it's a little dangerous, but it's a good jobs program.

As someone who has followed the Republicans for some time, having at one point served as Special Counsel to the late Perry Duryea, who served as both speaker and minority leader of the New York State Assembly and was an unsuccessful Republican candidate for governor, I learned how utterly congenial they were when amongst their own.  If you met any of them at a social gathering you would be charmed by their informality and good-natured banter.  But when it comes to the interests of the Grand Old Party, watch out.  Only in Chicago do the Democrats play a similar brand of hardball.  Next to the Republicans, Democrats are patsies, which is why they were trashed in 2010 and why Nixon and Reagan beat them soundly and why George W. Bush managed to sneak in thanks to the Republicans on the Supreme Court and the machinations of Karl Rove.  George H.W. Bush had Lee Atwater who ran the Willie Horton revolving-door ad against Michael Dukakis that enabled Bush to overcome a sizeable deficit in the polls.  In case you don’t remember, Willie Horton was a black convict who was released early in Massachusetts and then committed a murder.

The only time in my memory when the Democrats pulled out all the stops was when Lyndon Johnson’s campaign ran an ad against Goldwater with a little girl plucking the petals of a flower as a nuke was going off.  The add suggested that you certainly wouldn’t want Goldwater’s finger on the button because he had once suffered a nervous breakdown. More recently Bill Clinton played hardball in that way with his negative ads against Bob Dole which were classics in their way. The Kennedys played hardball but they didn’t run ads like that.

"We must either love each other, or we must die."

The Obama campaign has said it expects to raise and spend a billion dollars in his reelection campaign. It will be run out of Chicago, which should tell you something. Obama’s new chief of staff, Bill Daley, a son of the late Richard Daley who ruled Chicago with an iron fist, is likely to add a new dimension to the Democratic stance nationally. He was a high executive at J.P. Morgan Chase and has close ties to the Chamber of Commerce.  His bother Richard Daley, Jr. is retiring as mayor of Chicago where he governed much as his father had.  Rahm Emmanuel is likely to succeed him and will be in a position to take his own brand of hardball to the mayor’s office in Chicago.

All of this means that 2012 will see much blood spilled as the Democrats try to play catch-up with the Republicans in the hardball election politics department.  Karl Rove will be back at it after helping the Republicans take back the house with attacks that were left mysteriously unanswered by the Democrats.  They were unprepared for the virulence of the onslaught that drove them from power, which suggests that they didn’t deserve to be there in the first place.

While spending and the budget will be big issues, Americans are going to want to see the benefits of belt-tightening in the form of jobs.  If the situation does not get better, voters will be hard-pressed to determine who should take blame, when the answer will quite obviously be all of them.

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The Union and The Tea Party

February 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Last stand for the Cheese Heads? or for Unions everywhere?

The Republican-dominated Wisconsin legislature along with the Republican governor, Scott Walker, are on the verge of adopting legislation requiring public sector workers to contribute to their own health care and retirement.  The legislation would also strip public sector workers of their right of collective bargaining.  In response to this, at least 30,000 pubic sector workers have staged an angry rally in front of the state house.  The Tea Party, in response to this, is staging its own rally, which could give rise to a dangerous confrontation.

But if both sides were willing to listen to reason, an unlikely possibility, they would realize how this should play out.  With many non-government workers out of jobs and with union workers with jobs paying taxes to support the public sector, there is reason to believe that there is not going to be solidarity on this issue.  Taxpayers in general don’t see why public sector workers in a time of fiscal crisis should not be obliged to pay something towards their health care the way everyone else does.  The same is true of retirement.  The opposition to this is misguided.  The sense of entitlement of public sector workers is unjustified in these conditions.  And whilst many pubic sector workers are not all that well paid, there are some whose salaries are unconscionable.  School administration is one of the biggest offenders, with some on Long Island pulling down $250,000 a year.  Suffolk County, Long Island, police earn six-figure salaries with considerable benefits.  This has all contributed to the gigantic deficits state and local governments are running, the biggest one actually now in Texas, a state with no income tax.

I am Ayn Rand and even I support Unions, you dope.

By the same token, the Tea Party activists have no business opposing collective bargaining.  Ayn Rand argued from a libertarian perspective that free association was a fundamental right and that the state has no business prohibiting unions. She also supported the right to strike. She was right.  If the basic position of the Tea Party is to get the government off our backs, they cannot justify this totalitarian interference by the state with the fundamental rights of individuals to band together voluntarily.  There is a basic contradiction in this that they are unwilling to recognize.

But what if state workers go on strike to force unreasonable demands on the taxpayers who support them?  Ronald

If you expect me to pay for it, there must be more of it.

Reagan fired the air controllers in such a situation. Anyone who supports unions without reservations should have witnessed a leading teachers’ union official creating a major disturbance at the fanciest restaurant in Albany when he refused to pay his bill because he insisted the portion was too small.  Those sitting at the table with him, including some teachers, supported him. This guy is grossly overweight, a living caricature of a union boss.

The Democratic Party is dominated by the pubic sector unions and as such, is supporting the demonstrators in Wisconsin.  Similar demonstrations are planned throughout the country.  There is justification for this because the right in America has been determined to smash the unions and get rid of the National Labor Relations Act and the Fair Employment Practices Act.  Not for nothing did Reagan grant amnesty to two and a half million illegal aliens.  He did not do this out of the generosity of his heart. These were workers who were prepared to accept much lower wages than organized labor demanded.  The twelve million aliens in America are here to do the same thing.

The AFL-CIO is now a shadow of what it was when George Meany wielded power like a potentate and Lane Kirkland ran the Democratic Party for him.  The United Auto Workers, one of the most powerful unions in the country, was forced to give up benefits and take lower salaries when the industry collapsed. Because the AFL-CIO supported the Vietnam War, many young Americans saw it as the enemy.  When they nominated McGovern and defeated Hubert Humphrey, the hawkish tool of the AFL-CIO, the power of the unions in national politics was emasculated.

There is an important aspect of American labor history that most uncritical supporters of the unions are unaware of. A COVERT LIFE, the journalist Ted Morgan’s biography of Jay Lovestone, ne Jacob Liebstein, should be required reading although it received scant attention when it came out.  Lovestone was a founder of the American Communist Party but was personally expelled by Joseph Stalin at a Comintern convention in Moscow because of Stalin’s distrust of him. He escaped from Russia, fearing for his life.  Lovestone then organized a group that called themselves the “Lovestonites,” a sort of independent Communist Party of their own.  What happened after they disbanded changed the course of labor history.  While Lovestone was serving as the head of the AFL-CIO international division, CIA recruited him.  James Jesus Angleton, the head of CIA counter-intelligence became his case officer and close friend.  The union allowed itself to be used for various CIA operations around the world.  In Africa, it supported the Pan African Congress in order to undermine the African National Congress.  It was the PAC that organized the demonstrations at Sharpeville that led to the infamous massacre by white police and troops.  The demonstrations were supposed to show up the ANC, which had refused to participate.

The strong support of the AFL-CIO for the Vietnam War was an outgrowth of Lovestone’s power as a CIA operative.  Many of the anti-war activists ultimately became libertarian entrepreneurs with no use for the unions and with considerable distrust of the state.  The libertarian movement in America is pro-capitalist and decidedly anti-war.  They have left the unions in the dust.  The recent public sector union demonstrations could, like the mineworkers strike in Britain, be their last hurrah.

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Israel & Iran

February 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Don't mind us, just bringing a little death to Israel.

Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, has said that two Iranian warships were planning to sail through the Suez Canal en route to Syria and hinted at an Israeli response, pushing oil prices back up to $85 a barrel.  Tensions between Israel and Iran have reached the boiling point and there is no telling where this will lead.

During the reign of the Shah, Israel and Iran were allies.  Iran always had a prosperous Jewish community.  It was Cyrus the Great who ended the first Jewish Diaspora by allowing the Jews to return to their homeland after the Babylonian expulsion. The Book of Esther recounts the story of how Esther married the king of Persia, who ordered the execution of his anti-Semitic prime minister, Haman.

After the Islamic revolution in Iran, the attitude towards Israel and Jews in general changed dramatically. Ahmadinejad has on several occasions spoken of the eradication of Israel while intelligence reports differ on how soon Iran could make a nuclear weapon.  It already has long-range missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. Though a nuclear attack on Israel would kill several million Moslem Arabs, the Israelis remain convinced that this would not deter the Iranians, who never particularly liked the Arabs anyway with the possible exception of the Shia Iraqis who share their version of Islam.

The Israelis would very much like America to do to Iran what they did to Iraq–invade it and change the regime.  The

"You don't call anymore, you never write. What kind of friend is that?"

American neo-cons are looking for a restoration of their power in the 2012 election in order to implement the plan Dick Cheney tried unsuccessfully to get George W. Bush to adopt.  Some have thrown their lot in with Sarah Palin, who has taken on Randy Scheunemann, who served as Chairman of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, as her foreign policy advisor.  Palin recently appeared at a rally wearing a pin with crossed American and Israeli flags. She has spoken on the necessity of regime change in Iran.

Leiberman himself is an avowed hawk whose party, Yisrael Beitanu, is far to the right of Netanyahu’s Likud.  The Syrian-Iranian axis remains a source of Israeli anxiety and now, with Mubarak gone, they can no longer count on Egypt to restrain Israel’s enemies.

Israel itself could go a long way to relieve these tensions by entering into an agreement with Syria modeled on the one it negotiated with Egypt involving the return of the Sinai in exchange for full recognition by Egypt of Israel and the adoption of full diplomatic relations.  Assad in Syria has expressed an interest in such a deal, in which Israel would return the Golan Heights in exchange for Syrian recognition and the implementation of full diplomatic relations.  Syria’s support for Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza is designed to pressure Israel to return the Golan, seized during the Six-Day War, but Netanyahu has said he wants to retain a portion of the mountainous region under any circumstances.

Unlike the inhospitable Sinai, the Golan is now home to Israeli vineyards and ski resorts.  The settlers who have moved there enjoy a quality of life that they would not be willing to relinquish.  The military reasons for retaining the Golan no longer exist, given Israel’s ability to counter any Syrian attack with modern weaponry.  The path to peace runs through Damascus, and were Israel willing to return all of the Golan, Syria would most likely lessen its ties to Iran.

The Iranian provocation is nothing more than that. Should Israel do what Leiberman suggests it is willing to do, that would give Iran the green light to retaliate, raining missiles down on Israel. Israel has a missile shield, but some would no doubt make their way to their targets.   Were this to happen, Israel would nuke Iran, blowing up the entire region and throwing the global economy into a panic.

Think oil's expensive now?

How far-fetched is this scenario?  If you had been told that the assassination of a member of a royal family would lead to the destruction of Europe, you would most probably have said that such a scenario was far-fetched.  The Middle East is a powder keg, with the old status quo under threat just as Europe’s was.  Passions are running high.  With Iran threatened by a growing opposition not only to the government but also to the Islamic revolution itself, what better way to silence the opposition than by going to war?  There is also a good deal of internal dissatisfaction with Netanyahu’s government in Israel.  Leiberman is close to being indicted.  Retaliation against the Iranian ships in the Suez Canal would get him off the hook and save the government from elections.  Never underestimate the desperation of politicians when threatened by expulsion.

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