Why I'm Pissed Off Today

Truly Despicable

2008-12-04T09:26:00.000-08:00

The most important leader in the attack on the American working class today has a name: Ron Gettelfinger. Whereas the heads of the corporations are clear and present enemies with opposing interests, it's the collaborator who can do the most damage. Every word out of Gettelfinger's mouth seems to be an attempt to further demoralize and set back workers everywhere.

Gettelfinger is agreeing to the attacks coordinated by the auto companies and Washington. The UAW wants to allow Auto to renege on health care payments and remove lay-off protections, UAW gives ground to aid Big 3’s chance for bailout.

The "slickness" of the betrayal is in presenting a complaint yet conceding. From Gettelfinger before Congress: "I'm having a little problem myself here understanding why there's a double-standard here, but we accept it and we'll play by those rules." Playing by Auto's rules is a losing game, one which the UAW has been actively losing for thirty years. By the union's own admission UAW members now earn $14 to $33 an hour, and the unionized workforce has been cut in half in Auto over the past five years.

But be assured that Gettelfinger is not alone in betraying workers who have traditionally looked to the union as a source of strength. The other labor powerhouse, the Teamsters, is also doing it's part to serve the ruling class, having just proposed a 10% pay cut for 40,000 workers: Trucking Firm YRC, Union Set Tentative 10% Wage Cut.

The Health Care That Money Can Buy

2008-11-18T09:13:00.000-08:00

Some new studies delve into the effects health care costs are having on people in this country, Americans Skip Care. More people are skipping medications and appointments because of the cost, despite having chronic conditions. 42% have to spend more than $1000 a year. And to top it all off, Americans are more likely to face medical errors.

Now that's quality.

Rape is OK if You're a Cop?

2008-10-22T09:38:00.000-07:00

The county has decided not to prosecute yet another Inglewood police officer: No rape charges filed against cop (scroll down). The D.A.'s office admitted that there had been sexual contact between the officer and the woman in question, but they dismissed the case because she had a prior arrest for prostitution. The message to police officers: it's OK to rape poor women as long as she "looks" like a prostititute.

This is on top of the recent murders by Inglewood police of Eddie Felix Franco, Richard Tyson, Michael Byoune, Ruben Walton Ortega, and Kevin Wicks (all separate instances). There is no room for illusion in Inglewood as to the role of the police.

Kudos for Setting a Good Example

2008-09-19T10:29:00.000-07:00

In Los Angeles, the DWP union has been doing something right. Workers there are set to get a 5.9% raise for this year, matching the official inflation over the past year: Windfall for DWP workers. Not keeping up with inflation (and waiting a year even when you do) is the primary means which bosses use to cut workers wages over time. It's so ingrained into the contemporary mentality that you sometimes encounter defensiveness when pointing this out as a "wage cut".

The article explores the fear this kind of example instills in the bosses, pointing out left and right how upset their lackeys are at the raise. Fortunately, there is some perspective here: the $16.4 million needed to cover this is small compared to the $4.3 billion budget. On top of that, when forced to deal with this situation, the DWP had to admit that it's not an additional burden on the infrastructural needs. Instead, money can be cut from "outside consulting contracts" – a code word for money handed out to friends.

The biggest fear from those opposed to this is that other workers might demand the same treatment. Well, those workers should!

Inevitably Sowing the Seeds of its Own Destruction

2008-09-18T09:22:00.000-07:00

Every new detail and fact that comes out of the Metrolink crash is a further condemnation of this system. Today it was brought out that the engineer was working a split shift, with his work week spread out over 53 hours: Probe looks at whether Metrolink engineer's split shift played part in deadly crash. It doesn't take scientific studies (thought there are plenty out there) to see that irregular and longer shifts lead to more exhaustion and in turn more mistakes.

And then you take this over-worked individual and make him the single point of failure? One hallmark of a secure system is redundancy. Simply put, if one system fails, a second one kicks in, and then a third if that system falls through. It doesn't eliminate the risk entirely, but it's an effective means of limiting risk in a situation where human lives are at stake.

But safety takes money, and – like with split-shifts – maximizing profits trumps all other concerns. Safety systems have been available for over thirty years, yet everyone from the heads of Metrolink and Union Pacific all the way up to President Bush have argued against the added expense of safety features. To insult us all, the President called these long-existent systems "unproven".

It would cost more money to actually expand the amount of track. Why shouldn't there be more track going in and out of the second largest metropolitan area in the United States? Because it would cost too much to lay the track and maintain it once in place.

What no paper has mentioned yet is that there used to be more human eyes on and around these trains as well. The engineer wasn't alone in the cabin. There were switchmen on the ground to monitor the coming and going of the different trains. But again, that kind of staffing takes money.

So a few fatalities is a small price to pay to maximize profits. There's no fixing that, it's the fundamental basis of the American way of life. Unless people decide to fight back, that is.

Step in the Right Direction

2008-09-04T10:33:00.000-07:00

In Greece, some people are taking a more proactive approach to soaring food prices: "Robin Hoods" steal at the store, give to the poor?. The article throws out the word "anarchists" without really backing it up, i.e., are these people consciously organized under that label? In any case, seemingly spontaneous acts like this during the early years of the Great Depression were building blocks to greater resistance in the working class. It's how the people organize that will determine whether something like this gets crushed as an exception or builds into something positive instead of just desperate.

Do Only Harm

2008-08-22T09:08:00.000-07:00

The Hippocratic Oath is no longer taken by all physicians and has fallen by the wayside because of the needs of the capitalist system. The most extreme examples are those doctors who assist in the torture and murder of state enemies in places like the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp. But an equally dangerous threat to the American way is the notion some women have that they should be equal and have control of their bodies. The government, therefore, is stepping in to protect it's shock troops in the medical professions: Protecting health workers beliefs. (notice the title change between the delivery edition and that online).

The rule empowers federal health officials to pull funding from more than 584,000 hospitals, clinics, health plans, doctors' offices and other entities that do not accommodate employees who refuse to participate in care they find objectionable on personal, moral or religious grounds.

....

the regulation would explicitly allow workers to withhold information about such services and refuse to refer patients elsewhere.

Hiding behind a wall of false morals is not a new approach. And, of course, the people with morals aren't going to deny care based upon whether a patient "believes" in evolution: "I'm sorry sir, but I can only prescribe aspirin to you, all our anti-biotic and heart medicines have been developed by scientists using the principles of evolution." So this regulation is yet another bald-faced attack on women and their rights. The economy has developed too far to pull women from the workplace, but there's still a burning need to make sure they are kept second-class citizens — higher wages and civilization are at risk.

Waiting for a Gulf of Persia Incident

2008-06-30T17:27:00.000-07:00

Always worth reading, Seymour Hersh has a new article out: Preparing the Battlefield. It's an overview of recent developments in the U.S.-Iran relationship vis-à-vis secret operations. The reason insiders are speaking up about this is because the U.S. government – in order to destabilize Iran – is backing small separatist movements who use terrorist tactics, and the insiders do not consider this an effective approach in dealing with Iran. Their goals are not any nobler, but they are concerned about the tactics.

While pointing out that the U.S. is repeating the same behavior that helped create the Taliban, it's asserted by one of the interviewees that "the violence [from U.S. support of terrorist fringe groups], rather than weakening Iran’s religious government, may generate support for it." This is just a continuation of policy shifted since the late 90s when the U.S. "diplomatic" approach to Iran helped strengthen support for the regime at a time when democratic elements had seemed to be gaining strength.

The other important factor here is the search for an accelerator into the conflict. (Hersh seems to chalk it up to the will of Cheney, but the desire to regain Iran is more widespread in the ruling echelons.) Polls have taught the administration something important: that an incident like the patrol boat scare in January 2008 could sway American public opinion enough to justify their war. A meeting following this incident was described thus: "The subject was how to create a casus belli between Tehran and Washington". In other words, another contrived incident like the Gulf of Tonkin Incident could be used to push the U.S. into a war with Iran.

Just remember, when they used this ruse in 1964, it was with a Democrat in office who'd paid lip service to the idea of keeping us out of war. The Tonkin situation, likewise, was the culmination of years of secret operations (including Operation 34A) against the Vietnamese government.

Founded Upon Moral Hazard

2008-03-20T08:21:00.001-07:00

The New York Times, among many, has been putting out the idea of "moral hazard" this past week (When a Safety Net Can Lead to Risky Behavior). The notion is that the presence of a reliable, implied safety net can lead to risky behaviors.

Normally, the concern among the media is about the risk of poor people benefiting from some sort of safety net, so moral hazard is yet another club in the bag of political demagoguery used to beat on workers. Now, however, it's become a question of whether actions like the Bear Stearns bailout can lead to moral hazard. What makes this laughable is that the entire financial system is grounded upon moral hazard for the capitalist class.

Let's examine some cases from recent history. Japan's housing bubble burst around 1990, leading to at least 15 years of economic decline for that nation. Over the 90s (and particularly in 1995) several financial institutions were bailed out using taxpayer money, including Yamaichi Securities and Sanyo Securities – some of the biggest in the nation. After the Russian debacle of 1998, the U.S. stepped in to bail out one of the largest hedge funds, Long Term Management Capital. And, of course, a major role of the IMF is to help bail out failed investments throughout the third world, seen in particular following the Asian financial crisis of 1997.

All of these bailouts send a distinctly clear message: for those at the top of finance (i.e., the major players of the capitalist class), take as many risks as you like, the government is your insurance agent with low premiums. Let's not confuse this with some deviation from policy, though, for this is the very role of the government. The state's role has always been to protect the investments and property of the ruling class, even if the particulars of those investments change over time from one primarily based on land to one based upon capital.

King-Drew Redux

2008-02-07T13:16:00.000-08:00

The destruction of the county health system continues, as documented in Harbor-UCLA emergency room patients are in jeopardy, state inspectors say. What is going on now at Harbor-UCLA and the Sylmar hospitals is just an early step toward what was done to King-Drew over the past few years. The same threat used to close King-Drew, the loss of federal funding, now sits on the plate of two of the remaining county hospitals.

As more emergency rooms are shut down and more funding cut to these hospitals, the downward spiral of public health accelerates. The article lays out statistics for the Downey Regional Medical Center, where many patients who would have gone to King-Drew are now turning up. They are over-capacity for their rooms and understaffed to be able to handle the increased load. The VP there admitted, "It's not unusual to hold 10 or more patients in the emergency room waiting for rooms upstairs, and we never used to do that."

The real solution for these hospitals is not to cut funding, but to put more in (or to stop wasting it on management). You don't improve medical care by cutting staff, but by hiring more doctors, nurses, and support staff. A large chunk of the mistakes that cost people their health – and in the worst cases their lives – are because the staff is overworked. Don't expect any administrator or politician to sincerely propose this.

Immigrant Labor

2008-01-31T09:57:00.000-08:00

Filipino Nurses, Healers in Trouble is a testament that no immigrant labor is above attack, no matter how privileged or educated. Under the guise of a nursing shortage, thousands of nurses and doctors have been brought into the U.S. to work as nurses. But when they speak up for their rights, which have been clearly and repeatedly violated, they are subject to attack just like everyone else.

In this case, twenty-seven nurses from the Philippines have been jerked around by the nursing homes who brought them over. Their green cards were delayed. Their initial wages were about a third of the promised rate, and even when they attained official status, they were often paid wages about two-thirds their promised and federally regulated rate. After saying enough is enough and complaining to their embassy, they decided to vote with their feet. In doing so, they were conscious about leaving at a time when there would be the least impact to the patients they cared for.

But the entire system is against them. Not only is the New York Times article on the attack, standing behind the nursing home corporations. Judges and senators are after them as well. These nurses were brought in because they're "honest, industrious and don’t complain a lot". That will be enforced by law, if need be.

Justice For Sale

2008-01-30T13:02:00.000-08:00

Nice article on bail bondsman, an institution nearly unique to the United States: Illegal Globally, Bail for Profit Remains in U.S.. It runs down a brief history and the recent expansion of the bail industry, which is considered an obstruction of justice elsewhere. While touting the glories of capitalism, it clearly demonstrates the class nature of the justice system.

Take That

2008-01-24T09:30:00.000-08:00

Some might remember the lawsuit on behalf of workers at IBM. They were in salaried positions and not given overtime pay despite all the overtime work they do. The trick was that in order to be in this category, one has to be categorized like management and these workers aren't.

So the lawsuit was "won" and now IBM has moved to cut the base pay of these computer technicians by 15% (IBM Cuts Technicians' Base Pay After Lawsuit). The company claims that workers will make up the difference through overtime pay. The only way to counter this kind of backhanded slap is through organizing.

Tapeworm in the Belly of the Working Class

2008-01-18T15:30:00.000-08:00

Company unions were formally outlawed in the United States in 1935 with the National Labor Relations Act. But this is a legal formality, and today company unions are again a dominant force in oppressing the working class and preventing them from having their own, independent organizations. As long as this situation persists, workers cannot expect their lot to improve.

Ron Gettelfinger (head of the most important company union in the U.S. – if not the world) just spoke up after a long period of silence (UAW Sees Big 3 Saving $1,000 a Car). The silence was due to the nasty concession contract he forced upon autoworkers in the fall. The rank and file were riled up from that vote, so it was best to let that settle down before saying anything.

But time has passed, and Gettelfinger and the union brass have their loyalties. Now, he proudly brags about how he has single-handedly cut the standard of living for workers everywhere: "the union's new labor contract with Detroit's Big Three auto makers should save the trio about $1,000 a car built in the U.S." (Are car prices suddenly dropping by that much?) He is proud of having let GM cut its workforce, putting workers out of their jobs. And, of course, his "decent relationship" with Cerberus founder Stephen Feinberg means that workers at Chrysler can expect more attacks soon.

The large 'No' votes on the auto contracts didn't come out of nowhere. There are workers, including those who've already faced Delphi, willing to organize against the concessions. Statements like these from Gettelfinger make it clear that the struggle continues.

Don't Mind the Man Behind the Curtain

2008-01-17T09:55:00.000-08:00

The class nature of the legal system is brought into stark relief in the case of Lockheed workers whose case has now be kiboshed: Conflict of interest tanks worker's case. The majority of judges on the California Supreme Court have stock in oil companies and thus had to recuse themselves from this case. The remaining judges, instead of bringing in temporary judges, decided not to hear it. Case closed, sorry about your medical bills, now go home and shut up.

Many are happy to provide solutions to this situation. The primary suggestion from analysts and editorialists is to have the judges keep their investments in a blind trust. In other words, to hide their wealth from them, but more importantly from the public. This doesn't change the fact that these judges are members of the elite, benefiting from the misery of workers like those at Lockheed. But it does have the effect of illusion, making it look like these judges are neutral. And in the end, this is what most interests the ruling class.

Priorities and Motives

2008-01-10T08:44:00.000-08:00

Hanlon's Razor, or "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity", is perhaps the most insidious and disgusting excuse of our time. It proposes a dichotomy between conspiracy theory and buffoonery, when the reality is that neither is culpable. It allows people to dismiss, off-hand, others as "conspiracy theorists" while appealing to their own sense of intellectual superiority. A good economist will tell you to look at motive and incentives, and in turn this should be enough to understand most situations.

Los Angeles public transit is riddled with so many holes and inefficiencies that a common saying here is "there is no public transit". An article in the Daily Breeze explores one of those holes – a Green Line that stops two miles from LAX (The mystery of the Green Line).

Early on in the article, a former councilwoman is quoted paraphrasing Hanlon's Razor, thus setting the tone. Fortunately, the article goes on to show the motivated interests involved and why we still have no direct connection to the third busiest airport in the United States.

One guilty party is LAWA, whose own lack of interest in the project has most certainly contributed to it never getting off the ground. Nominally, they supported the LAX-Green Line link, but "the support didn't go very deep". Whether to attribute it to parking fees or property concerns, it is clear that their material interests have conflicted with building the link. LAWA is an entity large and important enough to pressure local government if they so wished.

The Transportation Commission must take the rest of the blame. Unfortunately, the article does not go into details about who was on the committee and what their own possible interests might have been. In any case, the panel's initial motive was to serve a larger business community (El Segundo, at that time), which already tells the reader that pandering to business was more important than public service. And, of course, since no one was willing to fight for more funds to serve both ends, the public still loses.

Welfare Mothers Make Better Lovers

2008-01-07T15:06:00.000-08:00

Fascinating research article over at Japan Focus, Single Mothers and Welfare Restructuring in Japan: Gender and Class Dimensions of Income and Employment. Apparently statistical analysis in Japan in about a century behind the rest of the industrialized world, as this study is the first to actually break out an analysis of single mothers.

Single mothers in Japan have the highest rate of workforce participation in the world (87%), yet struggle to make ends meet as the average salary is 2.2 million yen per year (c.f., 5.9 million for married fathers and 7.8 million when both parents work). The article explores the differences that come from the class of the mother, derived from their educational background. Overwhelmingly, single mothers in Japan are more likely to have less education, and in turn more difficulty getting a "permanent" position. This contradicts the "conventional wisdom" that divorce rates in Japan have been increasing as women become more educated and financially independent. On top of this, single mothers in Japan are much less likely to receive child-care assistance from relatives as compared to the U.S. and U.K. (only 12%).

The article points out one particularly interesting correlation that still needs to be studied. In Japan, the divorce rate and men's unemployment rate map quite closely. The chart is here: Trends in Japan's divorce rate and men's unemployment rate.

A notable aside from the article: the Japanese government does not maintain an official poverty rate. They maintain a count of the people who have received public assistance (生活保護 seikatsu hogo), but that statistic certainly leaves quite a few people falling between the cracks.

Hitting People In The Gut

2007-12-18T08:43:00.000-08:00

Recent research examined the cost per calorie of the food available here in America, A High Price for Healthy Food. The result is not only that junk food is much cheaper – $1.76 per 1000 calories versus $18.16 per 1000 calories for nutritious food &ndash but also that inflation is much higher on nutritious foods. The price of healthy food increased by 19.5% during the two-year study. In the same period, junk food prices dropped by 1.8%.

A doctor who led the study summarized the results quite well: "Vegetables and fruits are rapidly becoming luxury goods."

And throughout the world, where junk food isn't yet as readily available, people are facing a similar problem – World Food Supply Is Shrinking, U.N. Agency Warns. The U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization's food price index increased more than 40% over the previous year. And last year's increase had already been 9% over the previous year. Storage supplies are dwindling for all varieties of staples.

The article attempts to put much of the blame on global warming. In some sense, this begins to explain why it is that governments are now being vocal about climate change – it makes an excellent scapegoat. The article avoids a serious discussion of food speculation, which has been egged on by pushing crops into biofuel creation. It also avoids any discussion of the agricultural industry, which favors monocultures that are highly vulnerable to changes in conditions as well as dependent upon fertilizer imports and continual seed purchases.

Research of historical peasant conditions demonstrates that droughts don't kill people, the concentration of food wealth to a centralized elite does. Famine can only happen in an isolated bubble, and under modern conditions, this isolation is imposed upon people. There has not been a shortage of food for at least a couple hundred years, simply a refusal to redistribute food to meet human needs.

Limbo Lower Now

2007-12-05T09:59:00.000-08:00

The article Guantanamo suicide attempt confirmed reports on a man held at Guantanamo who tried to kill himself with his own fingernail. Guards stepped in and "saved" him.

This speaks volumes. How depraved must conditions be to drive someone to such lengths? How low must humanity sink?

Humane Inhumanity

2007-11-16T14:54:00.000-08:00

Dark humor and irony abound in today's L.A. Times article, A fence without offense. It deals with the difficulty of building a border fence that doesn't offend the sensibilities of our rabid racists and imperialists. "They want to make it seem like you could shake hands through the fence," said Peter Andreas.

The fence must be formidable but not lethal; visually imposing but not ugly; durable but environmentally friendly; and economically built but not flimsy.

This is the U.S. today, where people can be concerned about an eco-friendly torture device. They can want to intimidate workers into taking lower wages, but not have to face the reality of it when looking out their backyards. The ruling class needs to divide people in a violent manner, but there is a benefit to pretending that the violence isn't there. "Other countries are a lot more into intimidation," he said. "This is the only humane border fence being constructed."

There is nothing humane in oppressing another people. That doesn't mean that industries cannot be built around trying to convince people otherwise.

It's All Your Fault

2007-08-15T16:22:00.000-07:00

The L.A. Times has a cover article devoted to explaining how we will be responsible if the economy tanks. Consumers' free-spending ways face obstacles breaks down some of the numbers that have been crunching working people while speculating wildly about where the economy is going, mostly trying to say that things should be fine.

The real zinger is at the end of the article:

"Predicting a recession is pretty simple. Since consumer spending is 70% of the economy, if we become cautious and close our wallets, then we go into a recession,"

So, economic crises are not the stuff of speculation and over-production. The housing market bubble, which was fueled not simply by sub-prime mortgages but by high-end residential investments, won't have anything to do with it. The higher prices people are paying for food because that industry has found an opportunity to gouge working people with the excuse of ethanol won't be at fault. It will be because silly people get nervous and spend their money on food ...

Wal-Mart said its customers were spending more on lower-margin items such as food and less on clothes and other higher-margin goods.

Don't worry, Congress is already hard at work trying to make sure that hedge fund managers don't get hurt by our fickle buying habits.

Terrorist Attack in the Heartland

2007-08-02T07:27:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, terrorists struck New York City. No one was too surprised, as it is New York City, after all. But yesterday terrorists struck Minneapolis, collapsing a major bridge that's responsible for 200,000 cars a day. At this point, only 9 people have died, and there is no clear number on the injuries.

But these aren't the terrorists that the media keeps warning us about. These are not the terrorists who come from a foreign country or "foreign" religion to wage war against a nation which has devastates their economy and people daily. These are the terrorists that sit on city and county governing bodies, deciding to cut funding to basic infrastructure and deny necessary maintenance. These are the terrorists who make the conscious decisions to undermine public health and safety by closing down hospitals. These are the terrorists that, despite record profits and booming economies, see the need to keep the corporations in power even more firmly entrenched in power down to every last penny.

Reports by the Minnesota Department of Transportation in 2001 indicated problems with the bridge, particularly with steel joints because of "unanticipated out of plane distortion" of girders. The report also noted a lack of redundancy in the main truss system, indicating that a single point of failure could collapse the bridge. A 2005 report recommended replacement of the bridge, though the decision was made to avoid that option.

Even if this collapsed bridge on the I-35W turns out to be a fluke, it remains emblematic of the collapsing infrastructure all around us. The ruling class is carrying out a war, and they don't care who the casualties are.

Some Comparison, Please

2007-05-10T14:23:00.000-07:00

The tainted food supply coming from China has been mounting into bigger and bigger news. It is a serious problem that looks like it has spread well beyond the pet food supply. When the news reports on this issue, though, they use a lot of borderline bigoted statements that aren't backed up by good comparative data.

NPR was reporting numbers of food-related deaths each year in China. How does the U.S. compare? E. coli has been in the media as of late, but that's only the tip of the iceberg. And even when these numbers are provided, are they reported deaths or estimated deaths based on some organization's calculations?

The radio also made much of the unreliability of food suppliers in China. They spoke of cultural and business problems, implying that the Chinese just haven't come around to a "proper" attitude yet. But lets get some numbers. What agencies are there in China? What are their guidelines and enforcement powers? And, most importantly, how does food safety regulation compare to the U.S.? This one is particularly important, because over the last decade or more the FDA has moved to a "self-monitoring" model where companies are expected to inspect themselves. The FDA inspectors then come in and just look at the data the company has already assembled. The FDA does not have the power to recall certain food items, but must "shame" the company into doing it voluntarily.

There is little reason to doubt that food safety is not up to acceptable standards in China, but it would be important to point out how inadequate they are here, as well. The complaint about the fraud and incentive for corruption in China's food industry needs to be compared and contrasted against the same situation here. Serious economic analysis is missing, and not expected soon.

Fundamental Assumption

2007-04-30T09:05:00.000-07:00

Yet another article about public transportation this weekend helped point out a fundamental flaw in the way of this much needed resource. High-speed rail system may be derailed contains the following line:

Critics see the high-speed train as a potential boondoggle that would be a drain on the state treasury and a loser that would never pay for itself.

This is practically the same think that Snoble, the MTA's chief, said just last week; that these services are not able to pay for themselves, and thus a fee increase is necessary.

The a priori assumption of the newspapers and politicians in this country is that a public service must pay for itself. Every last single thing must be held to the profit model, else it be purged and beaten into shape until a profit can be made. Here, when mass transit and the environment should be at the forefront of the discussion in this country, humanity must be made to suffer to maintain profits.

The fundamental contradiction and hypocrisy here, of course, is that if politicians held everything to this ideal, then there'd be no reason for people to pay taxes. These ideals are only held up when they serve the goal of cutting or not providing public services. A human-centric system would take a (temporary) hit to build essential infrastructure.

Yes, Virginia, America is Racist

2007-04-19T07:30:00.000-07:00

"My first thought when I heard initial reports was 'Oh my God, I hope it's not a black person." These are the words of a prominent black author and activist, discussing his first reaction to the shootings in Virginia early this week. The article, When ethnicity brings an unwelcome focus, discusses why Koreans and Korean-Americans have come out in vigils and with statements atoning for the actions of Seung-hui Cho.

The article continues on to offer quotes from several other minorities, including a Latino and a Muslim. (They also quote a racist from a local right-wing, AM radio station ... this is the L.A. Times.) Here is another apt quote from a psychologist, "When you've got a white guy going crazy, [his ethnicity] doesn't stand out because most mass killings are done by whites."

Of course, the one word the L.A. Times is unable to say is "racist". Fact is, America is racist – why else would ethnic minorities have these kinds of initial gut reactions? These are the reflexes of people who have grown up in a society that discriminates against them systematically. Instead, the newspaper adopts a line that the "typecasting of minorities" is somehow a part of human nature and unavoidable.

Destroying Our Myths

2007-04-14T16:11:00.000-07:00

Within the past week or so I had seen advertisements around for a new series about Robin Hood. My initial thought was positive, since Robin Hood is one of those figures with a lot to teach us, especially in a time when the rich are getting richer at the expense of the poor. But, as revealed in Robin Hood takes different paths in Sherwood Forest, that absolute opposite is happening.

There are two separate rapings of the Robin Hood story coming soon. One for TV depicts Robin Hood as a pacifist who only robs from the sheriff of Nottingham ... and not from the myriad other parasites who put the sheriff into office to prop up their exploitation of the poor. The writer for this series actually said, "I don't think it's interesting or sympathetic anymore to have your supposedly heroic characters robbing people just because they're rich." Well, if you are talking to Hollywood executives, you are probably correct.

The seconds script, slated as a film staring Russell Crowe in the part of the sheriff, attempts to depict the sheriff is a "working-class cop". Historically, sheriffs were overseers for the serf system, working for the local lords to make sure that serfs kept at their work and didn't steal from the lord.

This certainly isn't the first time this folk hero has been maligned or distorted, but it is interesting that we see two such stories hitting the media plate at the same time. This degenerate society of ours, with the huge chasm between rich and poor growing constantly, has nothing to offer those at the bottom but a "rotten apple" theory of corruption or a request to sympathize with their torturers. Robin Hood is a story that poor folk have been telling for centuries because it speaks to them. The message of robbing back from the rich (what they robbed from us) is apparently a little to apt these days, so the story must be corrupted.

Sick Society Turns to Black Market

2007-04-07T14:35:00.000-07:00

Cancer drug on black market comes as no surprise. Several months ago, reports came out about a drug being wildly successful at destroying cancer tumors. The drug is dichloroacetate, or DCA; but, there's a minor problem – or at least, a minor problem for a capitalist health care system – the patent has long since expired on this drug. This means that no current drug company can make super-profits off of it, as they are accustomed to.

Drug trials need to be done on this drug. I believe that Canadian researchers who discovered this are looking to do trials with public funding, but the process shouldn't be as long and drawn out as it necessarily will be under our current system. Many terminally ill cancer patients, aware of the study and their dire situation, have started acquiring the drug from the black market. A humane society would handle this better. With people taking this on their own, without supervision, it will be difficult for scientists to figure out what other possible effects the drug may have. We can only hope that the drug makes like better for those forced to turned to the black market.

An Important Source

2007-04-05T20:53:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the short articles say the most, as with Pentagon can keep funding Scout event in today's paper. A federal appellate court has ruled that it isn't a violation of the separation of church and state for the military to help fund the annual Boy Scout Jamboree, held at a military base in Virginia.

Funding has been going on for 35 years now, and it is clearly a violation of church-state separation. But the important thing is the main issue for the military: the Boy Scouts are a "useful recruiting and training tool." The BSA has long been a bastion of blind patriotism and religion. You aren't technically allowed to be a member unless you are religious; atheists need not apply.

It would be nice to see a real separation of church and state, but that's only possible in a democracy. Cases like this, while sad in that they show how far we are from a more humane society, also bare wide open the real nature of this system in a straightforward way. It also shows how intimately connected religion and the state are.

Why Attorneys Matter

2007-03-21T09:33:00.000-07:00

The media and Congress is making much of the firing and resignations of several U.S. attorneys. Much of the blame is being put on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, despite the complete glossing over of his bigger crime in the promotion of torture to public U.S. policy. Certainly, the Democratic Party has something to gain electorally by pressing this issue. It seems that the reason these firings are a bigger issue, however, is because it undermines the American illusion in a fundamental way.

It is one thing for the nation to carry out unspeakable acts. It is an entirely different thing to make plain that the checks and balances of the system are in fact illusion. The legal system is a fundamental part of the illusion that the people have some sort of check on the government. High school civics classes across the nation go to great lengths to instill this notion.

To paraphrase George Carlin, it is called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.

The Game is Up

2007-02-05T08:05:00.000-08:00

Capitalism has been bankrupt for a long time, but its inability to deal with global warming is a wonderful example of just how bankrupt it is. Game over on global warming? highlights this well.

What is the first proposal that the article makes, even if only in "jest"? That all American abandon their cars for bicycles. The EPA administrator says, "As a citizen, each of us has an opportunity to make a difference." But then their own statistics later on reveal this common attitude, i.e. that individuals should have to suffer and sacrifice for the greater corporate good. Motor traffic and transport account for 7.3% of global emissions. Power plants, however, account for 39%. Seems a little obvious that we should start with the big dogs, but then energy companies are a major component of the ruling class, so we cannot expect them to sacrifice themselves (and by sacrifice, we mean take less profits).

They hint at one way the U.S. is trying to solve the problem today — "If the rest of the world returned to the Stone Age." Maybe U.S. foreign policy is more forward-looking that we realized. By returning Iraq and Afghanistan to the stone age, we are helping to stem global warming. Who's next? Any volunteers?

But we've seen where the U.S. and the rest of the imperialist powers stand and how far they are willing to go. The war in Iraq is about oil and the control of that oil-producing region. Another chunk of our foreign policy is about preventing Iran and North Korea from developing nuclear energy, thus keeping them dependent upon fossil fuels — another article in today's paper reports that a deal might be in the making with North Korea to supply them with oil in lieu of the two light-water reactors they were promised over a decade ago. And blame continues to be heaped upon China; how dare they try to expand their economy so recklessly? The second suggestion, of course, was that the "Chinese could close all their factories."

Real change requires large-scale action. People cannot "give up" their cars simply because of this problem. Real alternatives have to be produced, and we see here in L.A. how, despite the glaring need, even the "transportation" mayor is dragging his feet on putting in real mass transit and doing it now. Every proposal a capitalist politician puts forth is an attack against working people, an enforced sacrifice so that corporate profits might be protected for a little while longer. This system offers no solutions for humanity, only for itself.

Protecting the Cattle Industry

2007-02-02T07:36:00.000-08:00

Three separate bills have been introduced to address the E. coli issues that arose last year with spinach and lettuce here in California (Bills would target unsafe farming of leafy greens). The bills basically call for more restrictions, inspections, and accountability for those "farmers" producing leafy greens.

The problem with this is that E. coli is a bacteria that lives in the intestinal track of mammals. Last I heard, leafy greens were plants that grow out of the ground, now out of a mammalian hind end. Since the focus of the laws is the greens growers, it seems an obvious maneuver to avoid blaming the people who should be responsible for keeping E. coli out of the water and fertilizer supply. Another example of good old fashioned American blaming the victim.

Even if the cause of these particular outbreaks is not directly attributable to nearby cattle farms, it doesn't negate the fact that more people in the U.S. die or get sick from E. coli because of infected beef than from anything else, but somehow those stories aren't big news.

In Case You Were Worried

2007-01-22T08:39:00.000-08:00

The Democrats are the party of delusion, and they gather their votes through the illusion that they are different from their sister party. Events continue to show what the real difference is. Despite an overwhelming mandate in the 2006 election to get the U.S. out of Iraq, all Congress is willing to do at this point is non-binding resolutions while continuing to sign the checks.

In case there was any doubt as to what would happen to the Gemini relationship of business and politicians with a new Congress, this article sheds some light on the matter: Lobbyists find new Congress is open for business. A lobbyist from Bracewell & Giuliani says it about as well as can be expected in a public statement: "One of the lessons is that good lobbying is always bipartisan."

The article has its own twist. It presents the situation as one where other groups besides business are getting a voice. The counterpoint is that you cannot win an election like the last one and expect to do nothing ... there must still be token gestures. By no accounts will the Oil industry be hurt by the elimination of subsidies – all honest economists will tell you this and a basic understanding of economics should confirm it &ndash and the bills passed only cut a small portion of those subsidies. But the public effect is to fuel the illusion that the Democrats have done something about excessive Oil profits. The same goes for Medicare changes (which don't do what would be a baby step in fixing the problem) and the minimum wage increase (long overdue and loaded with subsidies).

Regarding Atheism

2006-12-26T10:02:00.000-08:00

An editorial the other day, 10 myths -- and 10 truths -- about atheism, lays out ten common "misconceptions" about atheists and the reality behind these falsehoods. The article does a pretty good job of laying out the arguments and countering them. It is written in a rational, thought-out manner and exposes these arguments against atheism as complete contradictions.

The real problem here, though, is that these are not genuine arguments. These ten points are not issues that are brought up against atheists. These are the talking points of the evangelical preachers and politicians and are all about distraction and avoidance of real issues. By addressing the arguments as if they are real, the author is legitimizing their war against anyone who is not of their sect. Instead, these people need to be exposed for who they are, lest we waste our effort trying to give bulk to their straw men.

Still Sick

2006-12-26T09:56:00.000-08:00

Nothing to add to my last post except this article, which just came out from the Nobel winner Joseph Stiglitz: Scrooge and intellectual property rights.

Making Us Sick

2006-12-21T08:00:00.000-08:00

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released a study, New Drug Development: Science, Business, Regulatory, and Intellectual Property Issues Cited as Hampering Drug Development Efforts, an analysis of the problems with the drug industry in the past decade. For example, only 12% of new drug patents are for truly innovative drugs that might help people; the rest are primarily for "me-too" drugs or insignificant modifications to existing drugs with the primary purpose of extending the patent and profits. Although half of their conclusions shouldn't be taken even with a grain of salt, the data is interesting. The best part, of course, is that this is the government, so the data has the veneer of neutrality.

Despite the numerous claims by the drug industry to what is hindering their progress, the statistics show that drug approval times are actually diminishing and the chances of getting approved have not varied. The report effectively lays out the flaws in a for-profit drug research model, where the vast majority of truly significant advances are still coming from government and charity-funded research. The path of least resistance for capitalism is the me-too drugs and sexy drugs, not necessarily something that will help people who are suffering from serious problems. Industry complains about FDA guidelines getting in the way, but the report does not offer any clear demonstration that this is something that has change significantly in the past ten years.

The reality is that we need more restrictive drug approval, instead of the system that has gotten things like Vioxx into the marketplace. Drug news over the past several years has shown how linked the FDA and the pharmaceutical industry are.

The proposals out of this report will do little to aid the rest of us. Shorter patents for non-innovative drugs isn't an answer: no patents is. And putting longer patents on innovative drugs isn't the problem, since the drug that might help (or even cure, a notion contrary to profit motives?) isn't likely to be profitable. Furthermore, such drugs should be quickly and cheaply available on a widespread basis, not restricted to only the wealthiest patients for years to come.

Disparate Reporting

2006-12-14T20:06:00.000-08:00

No big deal. With potentially 800,000 people subject to identity theft because UCLA hadn't spotted a leak for a year, it was front page news for a couple days. When Boeing announced that the personal information of nearly 400,000 workers was on a stolen laptop, it was buried in a small article in the Business section (Information on Boeing workers, retirees stolen). Given that Boeing is one of largest employers in the L.A. area, you'd have thought it was bigger news.

I haven't gotten my letter yet from UCLA, but I've been told that they offer to lock the files of those of us at risk ... for a fee. Boeing at least has the decency to offer credit monitoring for three years for those affected. Maybe they are charging a fee, too, but the article doesn't indicate that. Given that it is their responsibility, it is the least they should do.

Cancer from IBM

2006-12-13T11:00:00.000-08:00

As a result of a lawsuit, IBM released a large data set of its former employees and the causes of their deaths. This, in turn, resulted in a study, Mortality among US employees of a large computer manufacturing company: 1969–2001.

Summing it up quickly, there is an increased amount of cancer among workers who had been employed at their factories. IBM, of course, denied the findings of the study, which was the largest (10,219 people after removing incomplete records) study of its kind for a computer hardware manufacturer. IBM was also not cooperative with helping flesh out the data, though that should be expected since it could lead to more liability on their part.

Don't Choke Your Chicken

2006-12-12T10:52:00.000-08:00

Consumer Reports has just published Dirty birds, an article where they researched bacteria levels in store-bought chicken. This recent study found that 83% harbored campylobacter or salmonella, up from only 49% when they did the same tests in 2003.

The high level of infection is a concern, of course, as is the fact that most of these bacteria proved resistant to at least one antibiotic. Properly cooked chicken should eliminate the risk here, but these kinds of levels should still be considered unacceptable.

What is most interesting, though, is what kind of enforcement powers the USDA has. If a plant fails a certain "acceptable" level of infection, the USDA is not able to levy fines. It cannot close the plant simply because these tests have failed, but instead must have another reason. The best they have is the threat of releasing the salmonella test information to the public, and even there private groups were able to beat them to the punch.

None of this comes as a surprise, as the USDA is essentially an arm of the agriculture industry and not a standards organization designed to keep consumers safe. Budget and staffing cuts, along with years of lobbying efforts and the underlying system, have seen to that.

401(k)s Are Just Like Pensions

2006-12-11T08:43:00.000-08:00

Nice article in the paper on Sunday, So you think your 401(k) money is safe. With a solid decade of pension raiding and destruction under our belts here in the U.S., some more details are coming out about 401(k)s. If the company responsible for your 401(k) doesn't fall under regulations for larger companies, then your retirement can be taken away from you without you even knowing it. I guess the smaller companies were jealous with what all the big dogs were getting away with and wanted to get in on the act.

Like most corporate malfeasance, there is little monitoring of it by the federal government, and what monitoring there is doesn't have the staff or funding to really pursue the problems. The article lays out several cases where the government just doesn't follow up, leaving people out to dry. Even when they do press charges, the victim is often left with maybe 10% of what they should be getting. Yet another opportunity to work until you die.

Of course, the article presents traditional pensions in a rosier light that isn't quite right. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation has been screwing over people left and right in recent years, and there is talk that they are getting stretched so thin from all the bankruptcy scams that they might collapse completely.

Less Insurance is No Insurance

2006-12-10T21:42:00.000-08:00

As is typical of articles that deal with reports or groups critical of business, the vast majority of the article Report criticizes high deductibles is providing a mouthpiece to the insurance industry. But it also does talk about the report, which addresses the increase of insurance plans with high deductibles.

The corporate-driven health plans cater in part to the young who do not get sick as often, but also to those who simply cannot afford any kind of health care at current prices. The end result is that people on these plans are more likely to postpone care or skip it out of concern of being able to pay. If you are afraid to use your insurance, then it isn't any insurance at all.

At its core, these plans further the destruction of health care. The point of insurance is to spread the burden around, so that those who need it are covered. Hence, the inherent contradiction, since the basic motivation of an insurance company is to make money off of only the people who won't ever use it. What it all boils down to is that health care in the hands of private companies never made human sense, only business sense.

How Capitalism Achieves Equality

2006-12-03T14:21:00.000-08:00

American society is achieving a small amount of "progress" in diminishing the wage gap between men and women. As the article Gender pay gap narrows -- for unexpected reasons points out, men's wages have been shrinking faster than women's as of late, so there is now only a 23% gaps between what the average man gets versus the average woman.

There's no mention about whether the statistics include the "wages" of CEOs. Given that the vast majority are male, if you exclude them the gap would be even smaller, as their wages certainly distort the numbers.

How to Tank an Economy

2006-11-28T09:54:00.000-08:00

There is scant data on the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement. The only thing clear is that "free trade" needs to be put in quotation marks, since the first announcements make it clear that the U.S. is interested in imposing trade restrictions upon South Korea in terms of intellectual property rights. The population of South Korea is clearly upset: Workers hold protests against U.S.-South Korea free-trade talks.

Despite the fact that 80,000 people took to the streets, there is very little information out there about these protests, particularly in the L.A. Times which serves the largest Korean-American community in the country. The Korean TV news showed pictures of windows being broken and police riots, but provided little explanation as to why. The protests have been heavier in the poorest areas of the country.

This FTA is definitely going to devastate South Korean agriculture – there is already a plan to provide $119 billion to farmers over 10 years. There should be little doubt that this money will only cover a small part of the damage done. It may also hurt the film industry, which is protected by screen quotas that Hollywood hates. Medical costs are set to soar as well with the price controls on drugs being removed.

Reading through the data provided by the United States Trade Representative, I don't see anything that will actually help South Korea. So, reading between the lines, this is being shoved down the throat of South Korea at the threat of economic violence. The claims that this will increase GDP are easily counterbalanced by the fact that nearly all countries that have entered into "free trade" agreements with the U.S. have seen GDP growth shrink, not grow.

Oh Yeah, You Might Want to be Able to Get There

2006-11-24T08:46:00.000-08:00

Another minor oversight in the full-frontal assault on health care for working people here in L.A.: City Considers Transit Changes In Wake Of King-Drew Downsizing. Now that people in South Central no longer have access to a hospital, they have to go to another one that is 11 miles away. But, oops, it is 18 miles and 90 minutes by bus. Minor oversight.

And, continuing to rub salt into the wounds, we have this quote from Councilwoman Janice Hahn: "Many people in South Los Angeles were dying 40 years ago because of the distance they had to travel to access health care. Forty years later, we're back in the same situation." I think Hahn (who is complicit in all this) is trying to point out how good people have it now, because the current plan in the works is to move things back 100 years.

About Inflation Statistics

2006-11-22T16:02:00.000-08:00

Wonderful piece from Consumer Reports, Inflation’s sharp pinch on your bottom line. They break down what the CPI means, how it is arrived at, and why it is that it doesn't seem to match up with the reality we face day to day.

The article also mentions the website Shadow Government Statistics, where if you delve into it you can see that these skewed inflation statistics aid in skewing GDP as a useful statistic as well, since it is adjusted for inflation. That is, it makes overall growth of the economy look rosier than it really is.

In the end, these changes to the calculations make useful tools for pushing more sacrifices onto working people. For the economists, though, they turn to more accurate statistics if their real interest is figuring out where the economy is going. But then, most economists don't dare buck the consensus for fear that things might start to appear as bad as they really are.

An Injury to One is an Injury to All

2006-11-18T16:07:00.000-08:00

Nice article today about immigration law and the workplace: Latinos walk out amid firings. After 50 workers were fired at the Tar Heel, NC Smithfield pork processing plant on the pretext of immigration violations, a large number of workers (mostly Latino) walked out in protest. But they'd been fighting for some time, so this was just another straw on the camel's back.

There couldn't be a more textbook example of how employers use immigration to divide workers, lower their wages, and intimidate them into being docile. The ability to marginalize any part of the working class allows wages and working conditions to be driven down for every member of the working class. And of course, in the face of blatant firings of union supporters, a company can simply claim that they are complying with federal law. Of course, when it doesn't suit them, they aren't worried about federal law at all – and the lack of enforcement allows that to be the case most of the time.

Horray for Subtlety

2006-11-15T09:53:00.000-08:00

I remember in the weeks approaching the election, there were a number of articles and economists talking about the lower gas prices. One thing they strove to point out was that the falling prices were mistakenly seen by laymen as a political maneuver by the oil companies. They offered one explanation or another as to why this was wrong.

Here we are, a week after the election, and sure enough, gas prices have rise by about $0.15 here in Los Angeles. Pure coincidence, I'm sure. Let's see what happens to gas prices in the coming weeks and months.

But for everyone who was afraid to vote for Proposition 87 because it "would raise gas prices," what the analysts and commercials failed to mention, was that gas prices would rise no matter how we voted.

Talking about Jobs ...

2006-11-05T13:29:00.000-08:00

Saturday's article, Strong U.S. job growth boosts GOP hopes, brings up the idea that improved job numbers might help the Republicans out in Tuesday's elections. Of course, the reality is that although job growth is getting a little better, it still isn't enough to meet the needs of the population. The article does point out this roughly 35% deficiency.

Another point that the article doesn't mention, though, is that over 50% of the job growth in the recent job numbers have come from government jobs. This is probably typical, though I don't have older numbers to back me up. With elections coming up, incumbent parties hoping to woo a segment of the population, create a few more jobs in September and October. Simple enough election trick, but how long will the jobs last?

Freedom Isn't Free

2006-10-24T15:25:00.000-07:00

The group Reporters Without Borders just release their 2006 Press Freedom Index. By their standards, the U.S. has dropped yet again this year, though the usual suspects appear at the bottom of the list.

They ask a series of questions from a number of people, but I don't know if there is any weighting to the responses. It isn't clear what their "index" really means – the scale doesn't seem to have a maximum value. I'd rather see boundary conditions, and I'd like to know that there is some relative weighting, instead of what appears to be a measure of absolute numbers. Can you really compare Cuba, where a large contingent of anti-government forces are entrenched in the United States and receiving heavy financial and political support, to a country where those critical of their government are truly isolated?

So, in the spirit of bad statistics, here's some additional numbers. We are told that "freedom isn't free." This would imply that the higher a country's GDP, the more they can afford freedoms such as the press. The index doesn't scale well to do a straight ratio, so subtract the ratio from 100 (North Korea adjusted to 99.9 to fit the scale). Then divide this modified RWB index by the GDP (from CIA data) of each nation.

The results ... The United States is one of the worst in the world. They rank only after China and North Korea. At the other end of the scale, countries like Tonga and the Comoros are doing quite well, given that they just don't have any money to begin with. If we only look at countries with fairly good GDP, Finland, Ireland, and New Zealand still end up at the top of the list.

What's hinted at here is that countries like Finland and Ireland are getting pretty good bang for the buck. Those of us here in the U.S., however, are getting ripped off. Americans are used to it though, they get the worst return on their dollar for health care, too.

California Election, November 2006

2006-10-23T08:14:00.000-07:00

Finally had a chance to read through all the voter information this weekend. Here's a rundown.

My Vote — Proposition — Reasoning

No — 1A — The State government has already borrowed money from the 2003-05 budgets. At the current schedule, they have to pay that loan off within a 2007-09 time frame. This proposition, if it passes, allows them to not pay the money back until June 30, 2016. Sorry, but pay the money back now like you are supposed to.

No — 1B — Only a small portion of this money is going to public transit. In L.A., that's where the money really needs to be spent, so I cannot back any transportation bill that doesn't focus on this.

Yes — 1C — This looks like development for people who actually need it, and in the areas that need it.

No — 1D — I'm all for education, but this one would lift earthquake-safety regulations for community colleges. No thanks, I'd like everyone to survive an earthquake, even the people who cannot afford high-end educations.

No — 1E — The costs here just seem too high and misallocated. I have this sinking feeling that agribusiness should be footing most of this bill, not us.

No — 83 — I'm confused as to why this is a constitutional amendment. Shouldn't these things be covered by law already? These are the kinds of laws that politicians jump at so they can put it on their record. If they haven't passed it themselves, there is a reason. Most importantly for me, though, is the fact that this proposition openly throws the idea of reform out the window. Once you have committed a crime, you must always pay for it?

Yes — 84 — This is a hesitant Yes. It seems broader in scope than 1E, and most of it sounds good. My one concern: the exemption for emergency water. Why?

No — 85 — This is anti-woman, plain and simple. Only the most backwards of societies allow men to force women on this decision.

Yes — 86 — How can a tax on tobacco be bad thing? It may not be the best place to put the money, but experience has shown us that if we don't pre-allocate the money, it will be misappropriated.

Yes — 87 — How can a tax on oil companies be a bad thing? Sure, they've been lowering gas prices for a couple of months to make use think they are swell guys, but no one is fooled by that.

No — 88 — I hate regressive taxes, and this is one. It disproportionately affects small property owners more.

No — 89 — The problem isn't with how campaigns are funded, and fiddling with this a little more isn't going to make any serious kind of difference. At best, this proposition shifts a little more money to one group of warmongers over another. None of these parties have proposals that aren't fundamentally anti-worker.

No — 90 — We don't need restrictions on eminent domain, especially if it makes it harder to get more parks and public transit. Reality is that the government usually only seizes property from poorer folks, and this wouldn't change that at all.

Yet Another Giveaway

2006-10-18T11:43:00.000-07:00

Wonderful bit of information enclosed in the two paragraph article, Panel Endorses Plan to Simplify Business Taxes. The City of Los Angeles is planning to cut business taxes by 4% next year. They also plan to adjust the business tax system, which will likely lead to more tax cuts for businesses in the affected categories.

And what is the reason for this change? Because revenue projections have been met.

There are a couple issues here. First of all, this is the primary basis of the supposed budget issues of the last half decade. In the face of higher income, cities and counties cut business taxes in the 90s and then took a hit when business income dropped because of the dot-bomb. I don't remember hearing that those taxes were increased as a result of the changing economic situation. Instead, the cumulative effect over time is to shift more and more of the tax burden onto tax sources that derive more disproportionately from working people. It also becomes an excuse to cut more and more public services from the very people who are bearing more of the taxes.

The other thing is that there is no shortage of needs. Instead of cutting taxes (which no legitimate economist has shown actually increases jobs – usually the opposite) it would make sense to either save it somehow or spend it on important projects. The Mayor has played up public transit a lot, that needs money. Public health has taken a hit, that needs money. Public schools, that always needs money. The City Councils actions speak louder than words.

First to be Sacrificed

2006-10-17T11:26:00.000-07:00

Two years on, the Workers' Comp dismantling has had some profound effects, as outlined in Workers' Comp Gains Haven't Eased the Pain of Tough Cases.

For businesses and insurance companies, the "reform" has been a great success. Insurance companies have cut medical care and disability payments by 37% over the past two years. They are raking in $0.69 on the dollar from premiums, a significant change from their former claims of paying out more than they were taking in (a number you cannot trust without actually opening their books to public examination). Businesses are raving about their savings and the governor who consistently stands by their side.

Of course, while there is plenty of analysis of the business gains, there is no data yet on how much damage it has done to workers nor any enthusiasm to collect such data. The anecdotal evidence is pointing toward incredible increases in delays and denials of claims. Workers face delays in the order of years on their claims. The article points out a wonderful example of a woman who received shoulder surgery but then only received two weeks of physical therapy – for those unaware, thorough therapy is essential for recovery from these kinds of surgery, and it can easily take months to see real progress and recovery.

Schwarzenegger made it clear up front: "The most important thing for us was putting workers first." In case you misunderstood this statement, he meant that it is important to put workers first in line for sacrifice to profits. More grist for the capitalist mill.

How to Dismantle a Public Health System

2006-10-03T14:11:00.000-07:00

As the King/Drew fiasco continues, I decided to crunch some numbers.

I think I've figured out what's wrong with the hospital: yesterday's article, Hospital Turmoil to Affect Staffing, mentioned that there is a 5000 job shortage of healthcare workers in the county.

I looked into the County budget. Since 1999, there has been a roughly 15% cut in real dollars spent on health and social services. This, during a period when the percentage of uninsured has increased by about 4%. For the community that King/Drew serves, we're looking at over 50% of the population being uninsured. On top of this is the dramatic increase in medical costs over the same period, something like 75%, I think. This really puts Yaroslavsky's comment that "Money is not the issue" into perspective. Since he's been on the County Board of Supervisors since 1994, he's played an active role in gutting local health care.

And what is their "plan"? Set it up so other county hospitals collapse, too. They want to push King/Drew onto Harbor, where staff is already stretched thin. Rumors are floating that the director there will resign if their load is doubled like that. And what about services? They want to cut the number of beds down to less than 20% of what it is now. They are even threatening to shut the hospital down temporarily while they "reorganize".

King/Drew was built because of the Watts Riots. It is going to take at least that much to keep it, and a lot more than that to fix health care in L.A. County.

Worker vs. Worker — Guess Who Loses

2006-10-02T13:36:00.000-07:00

There are a couple of articles on pensions in today's paper: Private-Sector Anger Builds as Public Pension Costs Rise and Workers Get a Double Jolt on Pension Benefits.

The second article simply lays out a couple ways in which laws have been changed in order to short-change public-sector workers out of their Social Security. There is, of course, little movement by politicians to fix this, since it means several billion dollars per year that they can spend elsewhere.

The first article talks about supposedly growing resentment by those in the private sector against public-sector workers who are set to receive pensions. They present it as if these are grass-roots organizations of people opposed to paying more taxes to fund "underfunded" public pension funds. The article doesn't bother to track down who "Americans for Prosperity" is, but a quick search shows that they are an established lobbying group. Pure astroturf. The article hints at this later when it talks about how this organization as well as the Heritage Foundation are pushing for the destruction of pensions. Oh yeah, and there's that windfall Wall Street would get from switching all that money into 401(k) pits.

What is truly disgusting is that there are union people supporting this idea. What it boils down to, of course, if that these officials already betrayed their base by letting the companies steal their pensions. This, without challenging the fact that pensions cannot be underfunded because of any fault on the workers' part. In many cases, they aren't even underfunded, but when combined with CEO pensions, suddenly they look to be in dire straits since those pensions are underfunded (mostly because they are so bloated in the first place).

Fact is, as long as this attitude predominates, kiss pensions good-bye, along with health care, safe working conditions, and wages. Even the public-sector unions who say correctly that their pensions should be kept and should be the standard ... well, as long as they don't take up the fight and spread it to the rest of the working class, they are gone.

Same Tactics, Different Location

2006-09-29T11:18:00.000-07:00

Wary Eye Cast on Abe's 'New Japan' is a shallow overview of Japan's new prime minister, Abe Shinzo.

It isn't comforting but also not surprising to see that the attacks taking place in this country are also taking place elsewhere. In the U.S. it is some sort of mythical, christian America. In Japan, the politicians leading the attacks against working people are vocally calling upon bushido, the old samurai code that allowed the elite to cut down peasants as part of their social rights. For a wonderful commentary on bushido, I recommend the film Harakiri.

These politicians aren't subtle, either. They focus their energies on "left-wing" education and "brainwashing" — this despite the fact that their party has dominated Japanese politics for the whole period they say is the problem. At the same time, they claim that their cronies who are right-wing terrorists aren't a threat. It's obvious pandering to these groups which openly harass and commit violence against the population (and have done so for some time).

The LDP has had the remilitarization of Japan as a goal for some time now. What isn't reported on here is that there's obviously been a shift in the Japanese population. For decades, leading politicians wanted the constitution changed, but knew that the population wouldn't support it. Economic desperation and social breakdown over the last fifteen years, however, have shifted people's opinions. In the absence of another voice, the demagogues have gained ground. This subtext is throughout the article, but not mentioned clearly.

The Gas-Roots Lie in Tobacco

2006-09-19T21:30:00.000-07:00

Great article at the Guardian entitled The Denial Industry. It uses corporate documents to show how it was actually Phillip Morris who spearheaded the astroturf organizations that are so prevalent today, though it is ExxonMobil who perhaps benefits the most now. (All of the above are providing funding, of course.)

There's too many details to talk about here, but what's really impressive is the level of calculated, patient, insidious planning that has gone into creating the media environment today. What many people call "right-wing" should really just be called "corporate." Not that those two ideas are in any way contradictory, but it is important to draw a distinction between people who are desperate and attach to backward ideas and those that are shilling for company profits.

Celebration of an Embargo

2006-09-19T11:17:00.000-07:00

Today's article From the Ground Up, Cuba Is Crumbling gives a nice long list of how bad the situation is in Cuba. It makes a weak attempt to try to place the blame elsewhere, but the reality is that 45 years of embargo have devastated the economy, and continues to do so.

In addition to the weakness of the economy, more and more of the infrastructure is falling into disrepair. This, of course, has had an effect on the population, forcing them to deal with it by scavenging from any and everything. Of course, it is hard to decipher how much this reflects the real attitude of the population — U.S. newspapers like to pretend that Cubans are on the verge of returning to a U.S.-sponsored dictatorship. I'm sure, as much as people are dissatisfied with the current situation, they have no interest in seeing their health care system and other public goods completely disassembled by U.S. interests.

The other thing to point out here is that much of the infrastructure that is crumbling wasn't even there before 1959. It isn't like Cubans lived in some slick, polished dream up until that date. It's a testament to the Cuban people that they have what they do, in spite of the embargo.

So-Called

2006-09-14T08:56:00.001-07:00

The littlest things can actually say a lot. In today's short quip, Council Fails to Override Veto of Living Wage, it starts off with the statement, "The so-called living-wage ordinance..."

This article is about the City Council's inability to override a veto from Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley. The ordinance would have forced larger employers (read as Wal-Mart to many) to pay higher wages, something like $10/hour plus some amount of benefits, if my memory is correct.

But why the editorial phrase "so-called"? Is it because this wage would not in fact be enough to provide a living wage? Because to put the recipient above the national poverty level would take a few more dollars? I really doubt it. And it isn't a coincidence that the use of the phrase "so-called" is applied to something that would help working people. I don't see the paper reporting about the so-called Patriot Act, or any of the other long line of insidiously misnamed laws and propositions that come before us on a regular basis.

Pollution in Perspective

2006-09-10T18:35:00.000-07:00

There were a few interesting articles that touched on pollution on Friday and Saturday:

New Power Plants May Get Leeway on Smog

Air Quality Board Approves Revised Pollution Credit Policy -- Much to Critics' Displeasure

Pollution Concerns May Lower the Boom on Offshore Fireworks

Basically, when it comes to major polluters, like power plants, the South Coast Air Quality Management District wants to give them a break. Instead of really enforcing the (poor) pollution standards that have been set, they are lowering them. Instead of the $90,000 per pound fee every year a plant is over the limit, the South Coast AQMD decided a $54,000 per pound fee just once (not yearly) would be enough. And, oh yeah, these plants are likely to be in poor neighborhoods where the air quality is already low and asthma rates high.

The contrast with this issue was the concern over the pollution from fireworks shot over the ocean. The pollution from this is probably less than from one airliner making a flight over the Pacific. Furthermore, there has been only one study done on this pollution, whereas there are plenty of studies to show the horrible effects of pollution from power plants.

The difference is small fry (fireworks companies and the towns who hire them) versus big fry (energy industry). It is yet another good example of how incapable this system is of tackling environmental issues. They can attack the individual and expect us to monitor our purchasing and recycling habits, or even attack smaller industries, but the only thing they have to offer in way of controlling the big industries is to offer them greater and greater subsidies at our expense.

Environmentalism without Economic Change

2006-08-28T13:44:00.000-07:00

I finished Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things recently. The book presents a lot of great ideas about how to rethink the way we approach things like manufacturing and housing. These are areas that definitely need to be approached differently.

One thing the authors have a track record on is analyzing the various chemicals available for different industrial processes and eliminating known problems. More of this cannot be bad. Most importantly, they lay a groundwork upon which more research needs to be done for there to be real human-centric progress.

There’s a limitation to their approach, however, and it was clarified for me by a simple comparison between what’s presented in the book and how things played out. A chapter late in the book talks about the Ford Rouge plants and lists a long number of design changes there when they rebuilt some of the facility. If you drive past the Rouge now, there is certainly a lot of greenery filling much of the open space. They also implemented the pressurized air approach to atmospheric control within the plant. Problem is, since they were put into place a few years ago, half the blowers stopped working and there has been no maintenance done on them. Then there’s the “living roof.” This caused a number of “problems” – the most prominent being that it attracted “unwanted” gulls and pigeons. To counterbalance this, you now have at the Rouge what is called the “roof of death.” This is where poisons have been laid to kill all those birds (bit of contradiction to the principles here, I think). And when the wind blows, the decayed carcasses and other detritus come to earth and create a health hazard for the workers there.

The failing, like with books such as Fast Food Nation, is that their final proposals lie within the capitalist system and its reliance upon profit. The core proposals and ideas are good, and I recommend the books, but they always hit the wall of this economic system. Certainly, a niche can be carved out wherein the dwindling “middle class” can feast on safer food, enjoy safer products, and live healthier lifestyles, but without changing the economic system, these kinds of changes will be more about PR than human lives.

No Man is an Island

2006-08-11T09:00:00.000-07:00

"Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free."

— Eugene V. Debs

There's more to this than simple solidarity with the oppressed. There is the very real consequence that while one people oppresses another, they cannot be free. There is no choice in this, for no man is an island but a part of the whole.

There are consequences to the oppression of other people, and it has only been the high level of wealth extracted from these people that had allowed the U.S. to have a period of seeming calm. But we've been seeing our freedoms erode for a while now, accelerating more after 9/11. These are not freedoms we can simply gain back by marching for a right here or there. The natural tendency of our system is toward one that is more and more overtly oppressive.

Why Lieberman Matters

2006-08-09T10:44:00.000-07:00

There's been all this talk recently about Lieberman. My first impression was something along the lines of "who cares?" There is one issue to bring up here, though.

Lieberman is like Dean and Kucinich in the last presidential election. They never really had the full support of the Democratic Party, but they were very useful in bringing in votes. Lieberman is actually the reverse of this, in that his defeat by another rich man whose only difference is that he's opposed to the war in Iraq. Will this make a difference in how the Democrats support the war? Not really. But it will have the effect of pulling people into the Democrat fold when they should rightfully toss the Democrats on the trash heap where they belong. It helps create the illusion that the Democrats might actually oppose the war.

Better Late Than Never?

2006-08-07T22:06:00.000-07:00

The California Labor Federation has voted to oppose Proposition 85, set to appear on this fall's ballot (article). It's about time. Actually, it was time decades ago.

This is really a no-brainer, but also a sign of where labor unions are and have been. The fact that this comes up as a "controversial" decision makes it clear that labor has not taken the leadership role that it should. The group most harmed by abortion restrictions are working women. It is working women who must lead a fight for abortion rights, since they are the ones that face it not simply as a moral issue but as an economic issue.

The article brings up a notion that should be laughed at: the idea that such a decision isn't necessarily representing all of the members. The role of leadership is to lead, and more so in a labor organization. Leaders should represent the interests of workers, but as leaders they should realize the need to fight greater problems in society which are in the interest of all workers. This would be a much more fruitful investment of their resources than dumping money down the Democrat hole.

The reasoning behind this vote which the article points to, and doubtlessly is a major factor, is that unions are relying more and more on "liberal" elements to man their campaigns and work as allies in various fights. One downside to this is that it appeals more to the morals of these outsiders. A robust movement would pull these people in without effort, instead gaining its strength from individual workers who see real possibility in fighting as workers. And that should be the morality of a labor organization.

PATCO and the Decline of U.S. Workers

2006-08-04T11:41:00.000-07:00

It's the 25th anniversary of the crushing of the PATCO strike. The strike was so significant and successful in the destruction of working-class organization and standard of living that they decided to name an airport after the leader of that attack (Reagan).

Although the media plays up the cockiness of the union, they really don't get at the story of what really happened. The union was set up for the fall, so that the ruling class could make a demonstration to the rest of the working class. Well before the strike, Carter had already helped push worse working conditions on the air traffic controllers. This lead the union to back Reagan for president, with Reagan making all sorts of promises to the union.

When the FAA presented a concession-heavy contract, the union went on strike. Reagan then proceeded to fire all the controller, bringing in scabs. The plan of attack was already laid, the FAA setting up a "Strike Force" from the year before.

Now working conditions are even worse, and NATCO (PATCO's replacement) is looking at a situation where new hires will be trained at the busiest airports – obviously the worst idea if your concern is safety. But that's just it, they're concern isn't our safety.

The PATCO strike, since they were privileged compared to other workers and expected to win, had an incredibly demoralizing effect on the working class. Combined with unions who were already in bed with management, it sped up the degenerative process that leaves us with the working conditions we see today.

Ghouls' Night Out

2006-08-03T10:41:00.000-07:00

The media this week had plenty of photos of Cuban-Americans celebrating the ill health of Fidel Castro. I was in a restaurant Monday night when the news was depicting the same scenes. How ghoulish. If Bush died and people throughout the world began to celebrate, the media would be condemning them as savages.

It was refreshing talking to my aunt last night, though. Her news is limited to what's on TV, and she couldn't understand at all the animosity against Castro. Unlike this country and its leaders, Castro has shown a real concern for the welfare of his people. My aunt had learned enough about Cuban education to see this demonstrated.

Of course, Castro's health has also spawned talk of post-Castro Cuba and the embargos. They always claim that these embargoes are because of Cuba's treatment of dissidents, as if the U.S. has some sort of humanely-based morality to its foreign policy. What I'd like to see is a break down of how few countries we would maintain economic relationships with if we applied these standards to everyone.

A Little More Insight

2006-08-02T14:45:00.000-07:00

I was pointed at a useful Hezbollah Primer. It contains a lot of good historical information, regardless of any opinions that might come through.

For me, one interesting note is that the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel has (up until recently) taken place in the Golan Heights, which Israel is illegally occupying. Not that there's any reason to give any merit to Israel's claims in this war, anyway, but this means that Israel launched its latest war because of an attack that took place in territory they shouldn't be in. It's like WMDs, though ... simply an excuse that allows it to rally popular support for its massacre of Lebanese civilians.

The code words that Israel (and in turn the U.S. government and press) use also becomes clearer from reading this Primer. To make a goal of eliminating Hezbollah is to state a desire to commit genocide. And for what? I can only guess, Lebensraum?

The downside of the article is that while it does present clearly why people in Lebanon support Hezbollah, it doesn't address the organization's policies. As much as they provide support to the local population, they are still a backwards-looking organization that is looking to control that population. They are a dead end for the population, Shi'i or not.

The Democrats Want a Better Bully

2006-07-27T21:09:00.000-07:00

Classic bit of honesty from the Democrats. That party obviously does an excellent job of deceiving the American public into thinking that they offer some kind of alternative to their closely related brethren in the Republican party. This comes from the hearings on confirming John Bolton as ambassador to the U.N.

U.S. Senator Christopher J. Dodd (D-CT) — "My objection isn't that he's a bully, but that he's been an ineffective bully ..."

This just sums up well what interests the U.S. political party serves and what their intent is. To have delusions that one of the two factions of this party might offer anything but crass support for U.S. imperialist policy reflects either naivete or dishonesty.

Definition of Self Defense

2006-07-27T10:49:00.000-07:00

Just so everyone is clear on the concept, genocide is not self defense. If someone attacks your person and you defend yourself, that is self defense. If someone invades your home and you use force to remove them from your home, that is self defense.

Although that seems pretty simple and straightforward, many people like to repeat arguments that fail to grasp this simple concept. If you and your friends go into a house, kick out the residents, and then start firing at the legal owners when they try to reenter, that is NOT self defense. If you start throwing bombs over the fence at your neighbor, that is NOT self defense. If you just up and build a new fence halfway through your neighbor's yard while they are away at work, you can expect them to tear it down when they come home at the end of the day. Attacking them for doing so is NOT self defense.

Although I expect the U.S. and Israeli governments to spout this malarkey, please don't repeat it ... it's an insult to the intelligence of us all. When Israel attacks infrastructure and ambulances, that is not to cut off supply lines but to terrorize a population. Israel has infamous special ops that have openly carried out assassinations, so why are we to believe that mass barbarism is acceptable? When an entire region of people, to the tune of millions, is displaced from their homes out of fear for their lives, the invading army responsible is the terrorist organization. Hezbollah, as backward as they are, are a result of Israeli policy against the Lebanese population ... to condemn them, you must first condemn the nation and system that brought them into existence.

If a man takes a woman prisoner and keeps her locked in a room, raping her every day and starving her half to death, what would you think? If that woman, using the last bit of her strength, kicks the man in the balls, is that fighting dirty? When he then beats her unconscious, is he acting in self defense?

The Inevitable Shrinking Middle Class

2006-07-24T11:25:00.000-07:00

There was a nice article in today's L.A. Times entitled That Raise Might Take 4 Years to Earn as Well. Now, not only are blue-collar workers facing wage stagnation, but so is the "middle class." Of course, stagnation is an improper term, since things are getting worse, not staying the same. I put "middle class" in quotes because this is a manipulative term used in the U.S. press and by economists to avoid a real definition of class.

The guy getting spotlighted says it well, "Nothing else was going down except wages." Our economic boom is rumbling over not just the people at the bottom, but even those in the middle. This just seems like common sense, since you can only depress wages against the workers as the bottom for so long before they spread to other sectors of the population. Anyone at all familiar with Marxism is also aware of the shrinking middle class as a feature of capitalism.

Another gem is from a fellow at the Economic Policy Institute, "The administration is saying the only reason people are not sharing in the recovery is they don't have the right skills." People on the ground know this is a lie, but it is nice to see the statistics bear it out.

Of course, the article then blames outsourcing overseas. These are great emotional statements that work to stir people up against the wrong problem (most analysis of this issue are anecdotal and miss many aspects of the problem). The article does hint at part of the real problem, that corporations work to push more and more work on people and more of it down onto lower wage and skill categories. This is precisely one reason why a shrinking middle class is inevitable under this economic system.

The other issue they touch on is the notion of an "over-educated" population. This is such a wonderful condemnation of our society ... the notion that we might be over-educated. Our society is so bankrupt that it cannot use people's intellectual capacity, and in fact sees it as a burden. We have the greatest productive capacity in history and face innumerable problems that might be solved if people actually had the time and resources to work on them, yet "we" are over-educated. It certainly gives some additional insight into our deteriorating school system.

And in North Korea ...

2006-07-21T14:25:00.000-07:00

There's never a shortage of FUD in any given issue of the daily paper. Quick rule of thumb to find FUD is to read an article about any nation the current U.S. administration has differences with. Today's example: U.S. Pursuing Talks With 4 Nations on N. Korea.

The most obvious FUD, or FUD semi-retraction actually, is that Christopher Hill, a State Department spokesman, said he could not confirm that Iranian officials had witnessed the recent missile testing. The great thing about these tactics, and why they are used so often, is that all you have to do it put it out there (true or not) and then retract it later. The L.A. Times adds to this by placing the article right next to an article about Iran (another subject of heavy FUD in the U.S. press).

The article has a number of other lies and half-truths. For example, "the North Koreans don't seem to want to go to six-party meetings right now." It also labels this as a "boycott." This is a half-truth. The North Koreans are willing to engage in talks, but the U.S. has been foot-dragging. Oh yeah, and there are those sanctions the U.S. has on North Korean. One reasonable explanation for the missile tests is actually that they were a means of forcing talks to reconvene, since the U.S. was clearly trying to line up all of the other six parties against North Korea. In particular, China was invited in May to watch U.S. joint military exercises. As North Korea's largest ally, this was a strong indication of further isolation.

What is funny is that North Korea has been asking for two-party talks from the get-go. So, statements by Hill that the "U.S. would have no problem with one-on-one contact with Pyongyang on the sidelines of six-nation negotiations" are evading. The U.S. really wants to get its allies and others in the region to do the work, and particularly to pay the cost. The U.S. is the one who doesn't want to "torpedo" the six-party talks.

In the end, the U.S. state line is that North Koreans "pride themselves on being opaque" and that's what the media regurgitates. Why can the U.S. push this line? Because the media never talks about the details of North Korea unless it is backed by a U.S. policy. I've studied Korean history, and I have to say that nothing here seems opaque to me. North Korea is acting in a rational manner given its situation.

It is an interesting situation now. Of the six parties, there are three factions. North and South Korea obviously don't want war and don't want the North to suffer, but instead move toward something like reunification on a basis that won't devastate either economy too much. China and Russia as semi-neutral; they don't want war or complete deprivation, but have totally different interests. And then you have the U.S. and Japan who are clearly hostile to North Korea.

Japan is interesting here, since that nation is clearly trying to expand its military and get rid of its constitutional prohibition on warfare. But, under Bush's definition of self-defense, Japan could claim justification in participating in a war against North Korea even with that restriction. I don't think a war is likely at this point (initial estimates are that something like 100,000 people would die in the first week of a war between the U.S. and North Korea). Really, South Koreans are the only ones in a position to head things in a positive direction, but if they had the resources to do it alone things would be better off already.

One thing I'd love to see is a good, neutral timeline of events for North Korean-U.S. relations over the last decade or so. Every one I've come across online is biases toward U.S. foreign policy aims.

What's Israel's Reach?

2006-07-20T09:30:00.000-07:00

As the L.A. Times continues to cover the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the same lop-sided manner as everyone else in the U.S. media, they ran a graphic today of Hezbollah's reach. In this graphic, they depict the different kinds of missiles that MAY be at Hezbollah's disposal and their ranges should Hezbollah be able to fire from the heavily guarded Israeli border. They also focus on the fact that these are missiles produced in Iran.

About the Iran issue. Apparently, the U.S. and Israel are the only countries allowed to sell arms to other countries and groups. The press has been full of unsubstantiated statements and inferences about Syria and Iran's connection to Hezbollah, and this is yet another one of them. The press certainly doesn't condemn allied dictators for using weapons against innocent people when they use arms produced by the U.S. or Israel (Israel apparently arms much of Africa).

This graphic is pure FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt). There are missiles listed that have not been fired by Hezbollah. Furthermore, there is no reliable intelligence to say that they even own some of these missiles.

It is also interesting that, at least in the version of the graphic in front of me, Lebanon is not depicted as a country! It has a label, but it seems to be floating over the Mediterranean without any cities or borders. Is this just a subliminal message about Israel's intent?

But the main thing I want to ask is: What is Israel's reach? This is not the first time the L.A. Times has run a graphic of Hezbollah's military capacity, but I've yet to see them show Israel's. Let's have a full listing of their missile capacity. Let's also see their helicopter and airplane reach, since – unlike Hezbollah – they have a very well-equipped air force that they are using to terrorize thLebanesese population and destroy their infrastructure. Also, Israel has nuclear weapons. What is their reach? What countries are within the reach of Israel's nukes?

In any case, this is yet another good example of the "Freedom of the Press" and how unbiased U.S. newspapers are. Hey, maybe they aren't printing the Israeli information because it would just be too big to fit on the page?

Bush is Not Stupid

2006-07-19T12:03:00.000-07:00

Ever since the election in 2000, many people on the left has liked to call Bush stupid. It comes in many forms, but many a comedian has made a name for themselves by poking fun at the seeming idiocies of George W. Bush. This, of course, gets turned around by Bush and his supporters, as a demonstration of "liberal elitism" ... and they aren't wrong.

This has been a rather powerful tool. It allows people to claim that something was done because Bush is stupid, rather than seeing (or admitting) that Bush and his advisors are consciously pushing a particular policy. But this is a tool. Bush is consciously mis-speaking, consciously presenting himself as a bit of a buffoon ... or rather, presenting himself as being just like the "common man."

On that note, and this is something I've been telling people but didn't have a link to provide, a friend passed along this clip:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1342132664644484246&sourceid=igoogle

I disagree with the editor's conclusion. Bush is not senile. He is a politician and, like marketing gurus, an expert in presentinghimself to the public. This video, rather than showing senility, shows that Bush made a conscious decision between 1994 and 2000 to shift his image. It is an act and a policy.

Back to the issue of "liberal elitism." This tactic of Bush's is actually quite ingenious. What it does is drive a wedge between "liberal" intellectuals and workers. The intellectuals, by making fun of Bush in this manner, are making fun of working people. There are many workers who do in fact make the verbal stumbles that Bush so deftly imitates; and who can doubt why, given the state of education in the United States. While these workers may not align themselves with Bush, the intellectuals by their actions push them away. This at a time when what is needed are intellectuals who can play a role in real left politics and discussion.