Fact-esque

Food Stamps prime the Economic Pump

Globalization moved tens of millions of good jobs overseas to low-wage, low-tax countries; the banksters' refusal to loosen credit except for scams and rip-offs from which they would benefit has prevented legitimate businesses from borrowing money to grow on, thus adding jobs to a sputtering economy that desperately needs them, even though we provided the bankers with a financial "stimulus" to do just that; and the Bushies (with Bill Clinton's help) virtually destroyed all the elements of the safety net, calling it "welfare reform".

Given all that, it is more than a little ironic that local govts are now urging people to sign up for food stamps as a way of pumping up the local economy.

America as Oligarchy: Proved

Long past the point where you probably had any doubts, McClatchy reporter Chris Adams pretty much proves the proposition that American democracy has morphed into an oligarchy by researching the way our Democrat administration - a supposedly "liberal" one - has shamelessly kowtowed to corporate interests by refusing to indict their clearly criminal activities. (Via Mark at Norwegianity)

Going Forward

Thanks to my willingness to believe Edwards' promise not to forget the people he said he was fighting for during his campaign and to Lambert's suggestion to make sure that Clintama don't either, I've officially bounced back completely from Edwards leaving the race and good for me.  It took me slightly longer to recover from Howard Dean's withdrawal from the 2004 race but he was my first love.   If I ever meet Edwards, I'm going to be sure to try to get his thoughts on how he became the Dean of 2008 after he gave him such a hard time at every opportunity before that.  And I'd like to know what happened to put him on that path.

Anyway, in honor of my recovery, I think I may have found something very cool to look at before Avedon did - although I wouldn't bet on it. 

Do not give up on the causes that we have fought for.

And we do this -- we do this for each other in America. We don't turn away from a neighbor in their time of need. Because every one of us knows that what -- but for the grace of God, there goes us. The American people have never stopped doing this, even when their government walked away, and walked away it has from hardworking people, and, yes, from the poor, those who live in poverty in this country.

For decades, we stopped focusing on those struggles. They didn't register in political polls, they didn't get us votes and so we stopped talking about it. I don't know how it started. I don't know when our party began to turn away from the cause of working people, from the fathers who were working three jobs literally just to pay the rent, mothers sending their kids to bed wrapped up in their clothes and in coats because they couldn't afford to pay for heat.

We know that our brothers and sisters have been bullied into believing that they can't organize and can't put a union in the workplace. Well, in this campaign, we didn't turn our heads. We looked them square in the eye and we said, "We see you, we hear you, and we are with you. And we will never forget you." And I have a feeling that if the leaders of our great Democratic Party continue to hear the voices of working people, a proud progressive will occupy the White House.

...

All of you who have been involved in this campaign and this movement for change and this cause, we need you. It is in our hour of need that your country needs you. Don't turn away, because we have not just a city of New Orleans to rebuild. We have an American house to rebuild.

This work goes on. It goes on right here in Musicians' Village. There are homes to build here, and in neighborhoods all along the Gulf. The work goes on for the students in crumbling schools just yearning for a chance to get ahead. It goes on for day care workers, for steel workers risking their lives in cities all across this country. And the work goes on for two hundred thousand men and women who wore the uniform of the United States of America, proud veterans, who go to sleep every night under bridges, or in shelters, or on grates, just as the people we saw on the way here today. Their cause is our cause.

Their struggle is our struggle.  Their dreams are our dreams. 

Do not turn away from these great struggles before us. Do not give up on the causes that we have fought for. Do not walk away from what's possible, because it's time for all of us, all of us together, to make the two Americas one.

Thank you.  God bless you, and let's go to work.  Thank you all very much.

This message  - that the only way to change the corporatist direction of this country is through  unrelenting political action of regular people - is the most important one that Edwards could have chosen to share today.   I've written about it here.  I live it in my professional and personal life.   But here's the thing - we must have leaders to inspire us.  There's no way around it and believe me, I wish there were because finding these people and keeping them alive literally and figuratively is hard as hell to do.    They are the match that lights the fire.  They need to inspire us to fight peacefully - not to get along passively.  Maybe Edwards is that guy.    He sounded today like he wants to be and I think he'll be more effective without a failing presidential campaign to drag along.  But words are cheap so we'll have to see what happens.  In the meantime, it's back to the trenches.  Pick your issue and be the leader your community needs to get to work.  That way, when a national leader comes along, you'll be ready or maybe you'll be it.

Related:  Rox, Shaun Mullen and Avedon have my favorite post-Edwards campaign posts so far.

The Effrontery of Obama

Every so often I read something in a blog that crystallizes thoughts that have been rattling around in my head.  The last time that happened, it was Atrios' capsule summaries of the top three DemCans' messages:

Obama: The system sucks, but I'm so awesome that it'll melt away before me.
Edwards: The system sucks, and we're gonna have to fight like hell to destroy it.
Clinton: The system sucks, and I know how to work within it more than anyone.

Today I read at Corrente the reason why I'm so disgusted with Obama's favorable comment about Reagan even though I can, if I try hard enough, convince myself that it was said with a wink and nod to all the people who know what a disaster Reagan's policies were for the country.  Vastleft writes:

That’s basically the message, isn’t it?  Obama wants us to be his champions, but he doesn’t want to be ours.

That was basically the point I made to the Obama fundraiser who called me over the weekend to ask for $200.   I told her that I'm a Roosevelt Democrat and that as long as Edwards is in the race, talking the talk I believe in, I have no interest in sending a dime to Obama, who is so clearly taking my vote for granted and who may, if I trust what he's saying now, work against my interests and the interest of the rest of the lower middle class when he gets elected.

What's a Nice Word for "Class War"?

In October Bill Moyers interviewed Robert Kuttner and William Donaldson discussing "Wall St. Woes," which are more likely going to be our problem than the problem of anyone who works on Wall St.   Kuttner and Donaldson sounded like they work on the Edwards campaign.  Here's the takeaway:

BILL MOYERS: But does capitalism ever agree that enough is enough?

WILLIAM DONALDSON: No, I don't think so. I mean-- I think that-- not to get into a political diatribe here. But I think the sharing of the benefits of a society are increasingly disproportionate. You talked about people being upset and feeling--. That's because, you know, they read every day about the fantastic profits being made by hedge fund managers and so forth.

And yet they're out there, two-family, two-- Mom and Dad both working. They say there's no inflation, but they're paying more for gasoline and paying more for the everyday necessities of life, and so forth. So in effect, the great middle class in this country has not gotten it -- it's tough. They have not really shared in what's going on now.

BILL MOYERS: Are you saying that this insecurity that you sense in the market has something to do with inequality in America?  That is--

ROBERT KUTTNER:Directly. I called my book THE SQUANDERING OF AMERICA because I think the promise of the economy as an economy of shared prosperity is being squandered because the middlemen in the financial markets--

BILL MOYERS: And the middleman is?

ROBERT KUTTNER: Well, it can be a banker, it can be a trader, it can be a broker, it can be someone who's running a hedge fund.

BILL MOYERS: So he or she is doing what that you don't like?

ROBERT KUTTNER:They are taking risks that put the whole economy at risk, and they are cutting themselves too big a slice of the pie at the expense of little people. The biggest hedge fund operators make over $1 billion a year. A normal CEO pay packet now is $40 million or $50 million a year. And the median worker in this country hasn't had a raise. Just barely keeping even.

So, what I want people to appreciate is that the risks in the financial economy, and the increased insecurity in the rest of the society, are two sides of the same coin. We've given up on a form of managed capitalism that produced board prosperity. And we need to get it back.

But that's no reason to get angry.

Amen

I know that I've been posting a ton of Edwards clips lately but the guy doesn't stop making sense.   This clip is about the way we treat veterans and military families.   During the FY 2007 budget battles, I did a lot of research into the veterans services funded by various appropriations bills and watched as those bills were scaled back and held hostage.  I found out that the Ag bill has a provision to exclude combat pay from food stamp eligibility.  I met people who work with military families that receive WIC benefits.  I worked with people who staff facilities that take care of vets who do, in the words of one woman I met, "come out from under bridges" to get services.   Edwards is not exaggerating when he says that veterans who served honorably are sleeping under bridges tonight and that that fact is a national shame.   

The Edwards campaign put a selection of debate clips together.  Here's another one from that collection.

Global Whatting?

It looks like energy was a topic at the debate last night. 

Speaking of energy - is this one of the coolest things ever or what?  (via)

Two German scientists, Dr Gerhard Knies and Dr Franz Trieb, calculate that covering just 0.5% of the world's hot deserts with a technology called concentrated solar power (CSP) would provide the world's entire electricity needs, with the technology also providing desalinated water to desert regions as a valuable byproduct, as well as air conditioning for nearby cities.

They do it with mirrors.  I'm in love.

Back to last night: Rox has Hillary looking presidential.  But I don't know, she may have looked "angry" and I know how primary voters are supposed to hate that.   Likeability!  That's what they're after.  (I want to vote for whoever came up with the term "greencollar job."   That makes my heart sing.)    This is the debate clip that the Edwards campaign is putting out:

He's also got a very good string of 10-second ads running in Nevada that takes on the two-person race story.   They're all here.   I like this one because it goes to the other political holy grail, "Electability":

Dr. Martin Luther King

Despite the embarrassing bickering going on now between Obama and Clinton, this is without doubt, the King speech that has the most resonance today.   This audio file is twenty-two minutes long.  I can't find a clip of the part I like best but it is this: 

I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and toattack it as such.

 

And, just so we remember that John Edwards was talking about Dr. King before it was cool to talk about Dr. King:

He (King) did not direct  his demands to the government of USA which was about to escalate the war in Vietnam.   Instead he spoke to the American people, calling on us to break our silence, calling on us to accept our own responsibility and to help lead what he spoke of as a revolution of values. 

 

Economics is Boring and People Who Talk About it are So Angry.

The House vote to override BushCo's cruel and unnecessary veto of SCHIP is happening on 1/23 so call your Congress members and tell them to vote for the override.  Not for nothing but if an economic stimulus package is needed, I hope Democrats in Congress hurry up and start making the pre-vote argument that  funding SCHIP so that 4 million more children can have health insurance would be a darn good way to stimulate spending - on health care as well as other goods and services.   

Remember when Hillary laughed at the debate question about the failures of NAFTA?   Well Americans aren't laughing and neither are Mexican farmers.   

When the federal government refuses to fund the restoration and maintenance of our infrastructure, private money is the only option to get even some of the job done.  This NYT story looks at the relationship between the city of New Haven and Yale and the role Yale is playing in keeping that city from crumbling altogether.   Here's the pull quote for me:

Perhaps most important, big businesses no longer put as much clout and attention behind public infrastructure investments. In an earlier era, corporations, many with deep roots in local communities, lobbied government for the railroads, highways and many other facilities they needed to operate successfully. And they served as a crucial fountain of local tax revenue.

But companies are more mobile today. And many of the urban manufacturers most dependent on public infrastructure have moved or gone out of business.

Speaking of the ravages of capitalism, the NYT worked hard over the weekend of the Golden Globes non-event to let its readers know that the the whole strike thing is backfiring on the WGA.  It seems that the AMPTP doesn't need no stinkin' scripts now that Americans have rallied around "unscripted" programs like American Gladiators and the 2008 presidential primary campaigns.   Except that reality shows are scripted and are the acknowledged sweatshops of the industry.  As for the financial wonders of replacing traditional television entertainment with reality programming, well the benefits haven't trickled down to LA's melting economy yet.

WGA Strike Product via United Hollywood: