take nothing for granted

I don't mean to sound alarmist, but there is a lot going on in the U.S. right now that is being woefully under reported. And a lot of it could impact the upcoming election. As Republicans turn on each other in the final days and Democrats start calling the race over, the rest of us need to think about what it all really comes down to: voting. Here are a few things that may prevent us from doing just that.

1) For the first time since 1807, the President has put boots on the ground inside the United States. This after deploying Blackwater troops to the streets of New Orleans to fight crime in the aftermath of Katrina and expanding his power to commandeer National Guard Troops in 2007. Clearly Mr. Bush is seeking to establish and deploy his own private army within our borders.

Naomi Wolf writes at huffington.com:

The Bush administration has unilaterally decided to defy federal laws that have kept the military off our streets since 1807, almost since the birth of this nation: The John Warner Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007 expanded the president's authority to deploy troops within the United States. The people raised a hue and cry -- and this power was then substantially limited by a new provision in the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act. But Bush signaled, with a signing statement, that he would not recognize these new limitations.

And so it came to pass...

On October 1, 2008, President Bush deployed a brigade -- which means three to four thousand warriors -- somewhere in America. We do not know where they are deployed though citizens have informally reported to me having seen military vehicles and troops in Georgia and Alabama. We do know that their official mandate according to the first report is 'crowd control' as well as action in the event of a mass civilian catastrophe. Initial reports described their technology 'module package' as involving Tasers and rubber bullets.

According to Amnesty International, more than 300 people in the United States have died since 2001 as the result of being Tasered by law enforcement authorities. According to the first reports, the mission includes subduing 'unruly individuals.' After an outcry, more recent statements from military spokesmen have backed off from identifying those tasks as being the ones the troops will be charged with. Why worry about the deployment of troops in our nation?

First, the founding generation set a bright line to keep military from policing our streets in 1807 because they knew from their own experience how easily military forces -- King George's -- could subdue civilian society. The First Brigade is Bush's force: they are not answerable to Congress or to the Governors of states: they are answerable to the Commander in Chief... troops (who) must obey the president, even if he asks them to arrest Congress or fire on civilians or attack media outlets. If they do not obey orders, he notes, they face five years in prison.

More information on this development has come out since this first report. The brigade is based in Georgia and is now saying they will not be used in cases of civil unrest, however, ultimately this is the call of the Commander in Chief. Democracy Now! did a well-balanced report on this (here), albeit not reassuring.

Questions remain. Why are these troops on the ground in the US? Don't we already have a National Guard for domestic disasters? A National Guard that is under the command of 50 individual Governors, not one increasingly powerful President? Why is this happening now, as a contentious election approaches? Can we expect to see them at the polls in swing states on Election Day? I don't mean to suggest that blood will be shed, but surely there exists the potential to scale up the kind of voter intimidation we saw in Florida in 2000 where, among other things, police checkpoints were set up on the roads to polling places in districts with high minority populations under the pretense of looking for citizens with outstanding parking violations.

2) Journalists and protesters are being intimidated at levels not seen since the 1960s. For instance, did you know that eight young Americans have been charged as 'terrorists' under the Minnesota Patriot act after being arrested at the Republican National Convention in St. Louis? They are now known as the RNC 8. Did you also know about the mass arrests and police brutality of 200 peaceful protesters and 40 journalists, including two ABC producers, at the RNC where where the RNC 8 were arrested? Arrested by police officers trained and armed with federal dollars for this occasion and with federal dollars to cover any lawsuits that may arise from their conduct? No? Maybe because the police confiscated all the video, except this, which was buried in the ground to prevent confiscation:



3) Elected officials are also being intimidated. Rep. Brad Sherman stated on the floor of the House that if the banker bailout bill was not passed martial law would be declared in America.



4) The candidate aligned with the party of the president is making extreme accusations that community organization group Acorn, which has mishandled some of its voter registration forms, is "now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy," a call that distracts citizens from the real story - systematic and systemic suppression of Democratic votes since 2000. Read here for more.

Why should we care about any of this, you might reasonably ask, since George W. Bush will step down as President in a mere 3 months? Because there is still an election and a peaceful transfer of power to be had.

The only way to ensure none of this highly concerning activity results in a disruption of our electoral process is for Senator Obama to win by overwhelming and indisputable margins. This means getting everyone you know out to the polls to support Obama and making sure every vote counts. Don't listen to the pundits who say this race is over. After Florida 2000, Ohio 2004 and in light of the above events, we can't take anything for granted!

Here's what you can do:

1) Before you vote, download and read the comic book at www.stealbackyourvote.org which includes 7 steps to make sure your vote is counted; preview the movie while you're there.

2) VOTE (early if you can)

3) Volunteer to monitor polls in Democratic districts, especially those in minority neighborhoods.


ORGANIZE. VOTE. WIN.


More from Naomi Wolf:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/ten-steps-to-close-down-a_b_46695.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/the-battle-plan-iii-deplo_b_133662.html

up is the new down

When referring to Obama's tax policy, Sarah Palin said in an interview with CNN:

"I'm not going to call him a socialist, but as 'Joe the Plumber' has said, it looks like socialism to him," she said of Joe "the plumber" Wurzelbacher.

The GOP ticket and their supporters have invoked Joe the Plumber numerous times ever since the Ohio man confronted Obama about his tax policy in an impromptu campaign moment.

Palin said Wurzelbacher is representative of "Jane the engineer and Molly the dental hygienist and Chuck the teacher."

Where do I start?

1) According to the ever reliable Wikipedia, "Economically, socialism denotes an economic system of state ownership and / or worker ownership of the means of production and distribution."

How exactly is a 3% increase on the top tax bracket a move toward state and/or worker ownership of the means of production and distribution? Do they consider Bill Clinton a socialist? Because this is the very plan he implemented in the 1990s, the decade that left us with surpluses as far as the eye could see.

2) Does she really believe that Jane the engineer and Molly the dental hygienist and Chuck the teacher are making more than $250,000 a year? Can you say "out of touch"?

3) Let's assume Joe the Plumber really was a licensed plumber, who really was seeking "to buy a company that makes" (his words) up to $280,000 per year (none of which turns out to be true). Under Obama's tax plan, Joe would see tax breaks not tax increases.

Obama's plan is to restore Bill Clinton's tax on people making $250,000 per year in personal income not in gross business receipts. Assuming Joe's new company has expenses and investments exceeding $29,999 per year, it is safe to assume Joe will not yield a personal income higher than $250,000. Therefore, he would see no tax increase under Obama's plan and would see a tax cut if he makes less than $250,000. In addition, as a small business owner, he would receive a 50% tax credit for each employee's healthcare costs and would pay no capital gains tax on business investments.

Lastly, and most importantly, his customer base would also see personal income tax breaks making them more able to afford his services.

The real Joe Wurzelbacher, who makes closer to $40,000 per year would net a personal income tax break under Obama that's three to seven times larger the one he would net under McCain.

So how is it that Sarah Palin is still holding up Joe the Plumber as an example of the "real American" the McCain/Palin campaign is trying to help? You got me. But then this is the same woman who when found to have abused her power by violating the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act said, "I'm very, very pleased to be cleared of any legal wrongdoing, any hint of any kind of unethical activity there."

Up is indeed the new down in Palin World.

nobody does it better

couldn't have said it better myself

To the (New York Times) Editor:

Fair taxation isn’t about “redistributing the wealth” — it’s about giving back to the great country that gave you the opportunity to benefit so greatly.

It’s not about taking money from “Joe the Plumber.” It’s about making sure that “Joe’s Mega-Plumbing Incorporated” gives back to the country and the people who gave him:

• Roads and bridges for his trucks to roll on.
• Support for research for his latest plumbing equipment.
• Public education so he can have a well-trained work force.
• Markets so he can raise capital.
• Police and firefighters so his business is protected.
• Health care so the employees who helped him build his business can stay on the job.
• Freedom so that he can build his business creatively.

If “Joe” has been able to become wealthy because of the bounty of America, then he should pay his fair share back to America — that is patriotic.

Daryl Altman
Lynbrook, N.Y., Oct. 16, 2008

i want my country back!

John McCain and Sarah Palin desperately want us to see the danger in electing a risky, liberal, unknown Democrat as our next President. Someone who doesn't see the world as they see it. Someone who is so different from "us" that he can't be trusted. McCain went off the rails last night with his divisive politics in the last (thank God) presidential debate by trying to link Obama to Acorn, accusing Acorn, and by association Obama, as "now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy." Seriously? A network of community organizations working to enfranchise poor people who are predominately minorities and first generation Americans by helping them get housing and voting rights? Who exactly is trying to undermine our democracy, Mr. McCain?

What happened to my America? My land of opportunity? What's happening to our huddled masses yearning to breathe free?

I have lived in the Northeast, the West and in the South. I have lived in Uganda, Indonesia, and France. And if there is one thing I have learned over and over and over again is that there is far more that unites us than divides us. People are people all over the world. And I am sick to death of the Republican Party trying to tell me otherwise.

From 1986 to 1999 I traveled extensively throughout the South, even living in New Orleans for a few months. But things changed after 2000. Life took me in a new direction, mostly overseas, but politics, too, took me away. We were no longer a rich, diverse country full of vibrant stories and varied experiences. We were red states and blue states, liberal coasts and a conservative South and heartland. We were divided by our different backgrounds, no longer united by love of our country and what it stood for.

In my college and post college days, the South was the land of Athens, Georgia, REM and the B-52s, The Indigo Girls' sweet ode Southland in the Springtime, Flannery O'Connor's Everything that Rises Must Converge, Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Alice Walker's everything. It was muffalettas, The Maple Street Book Shop and the Neville Brothers at Tipitina's in New Orleans. It was the juicest fried chicken at Mrs. Wilkes Dining Room in Savannah. It was K.T. Oslin and Lyle Lovett, and Gordon Parks's gorgeous photographs at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. It was my first Krispy Kreme donut, hot off the presses in North Carolina, and the mist that rose up and over the Habitat houses we were building in the Appalachian hills of Pikeville, Kentucky. It was flying over the New River in West Virginia with eighty-five-year old Five Dollar Frank, his one-engine Cessna, his two hearing aids, and my terrified sister. In 1986, I fell in love with the South. In 2000, we broke up.

In 2005, deep into the Bush and Karl Rove years, I drove with my sister and brother-in-law from Washington, DC to Hilton Head, South Carolina. Stopping at a roadside restaurant in North Carolina, my brother-in-law declared somewhat ominously, "this is Bush Country." At once, I felt dread that we would be exposed for the Northeast Liberals we were but also an overwhelming sense of loss. Because I once knew, even just a little, but since lost a place that holds so much magic and mystery, memories of struggle and despair from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement, and yet also a persistent sense of hope and renewal. A place so rich with history, creativity, culture, and beauty it can leave you breathless.

But a place that didn't seem to want my blue self around anymore.

I miss my country. I want my country back. Not just the blue states, but the purple ones and yes, the red ones, too. I want the rugged coastlines of the Northwest and the raucous fun of New Orleans. I want the gentile and rhythmic life of Savannah and the Low Country. I want New York City jazz and Nashville, Tennessee country; Seattle, Washington mountain grandeur and small town Minnesota warmth. And I want to be accepted in all of these places as simply a fellow American.

I want this:

There is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America — there’s the United States of America.

The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too:

We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States.

We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the Red States.

There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq.

We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

-Barack Obama, 2004

I want my country back.

from the maelstrom, a way forward?

Conservatives are abandoning the increasingly reckless McCain/Palin ticket with, well, reckless abandon. George Will, David Brooks, Kathleen Parker, David Frum, Christopher Buckley (son of conservative icon William F. Buckley), among others, have all come out in recent weeks to denounce the selection of Sarah Palin as McCain's running mate and/or the recent ugly attacks on Senator Obama. A battle between the social conservatives and intellectual conservatives threatens to divide the Republican Party in the runup to November 4.

In the midst of their own maelstrom, seeing the writing on the wall, many conservatives are now trying to panic voters with premonitions that their (their as in the conservatives') worst fear is about to be realized - socialism is at the gates! Democrats will bring big government! Spending! Higher Taxes! The New Deal 2.0 is upon us! With their dying gasp, and collapsing under the weight of the largest expansion of government in the last forty years (brought to us by a Republican President), they are warning us against evil, big government Democrats.

Deep breath, everyone (if you still can, that is). In the mind of at least this progressive, I have no desire to nationalize our country's banks. At least not permanently. As an omnivore, I am not opposed to hunting or gun-owning hunters. If a woman can't decide after six months (and her health, including mental, is not in jeopardy), I think she should go ahead and have the kid. I believe in free and fair trade and in competition - in business and in schools. I want an efficient government that doesn't interfere with my private life. I have been known to go to church.

I am in favor of short-term government spending to stimulate the economy, but I much prefer a vibrant, market-based economy that yields tax revenues through good jobs at good wages. I want universal healthcare, but I prefer it be supplied by the private sector through fair and transparent competition.

Surely, we can find some common ground.

We have all lived through (or heard about) the swing from an overregulated, overtaxed society (remember rotary dial telephones?) to the current crisis of deregulation, stagnant wages for the middle class and the moral hazzard of golden parachutes. We have all learned lessons.

Like most things, think feminism or free trade, the pendulum swings wildly from one end (no suffrage, chastity belts/Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act) to the other (women need men like fish need bicycles/massive plant closings) before settling in the moderate middle.

I suspect the same will occur with fair banking regulations and universal healthcare. And I believe Senator Obama is just the man to make that happen.

Obama is, at heart, a pragmatist. A man who relies on experts and research, but also on first hand accounts from the people affected. He is not penned in by ideology, which is why many liberals find him frustrating and many conservatives can't launch an effective attack against him.

And, contrary to McCain's attacks, he can take on his own party. After all, he took down the lions of the modern Democratic Party - Hillary and Bill Clinton.

Maybe we can finally look back together, see what has worked and what has not, and then look to the future to make a way forward.

lesson learned?

This is a very interesting article to re-read in light of recent events:
Confronting Ghosts of 2000 in South Carolina , by Jennifer Steinhauer, New York Times, Octboer 19, 2007

In that fateful primary election, Senator McCain decided to go negative against then Governor Bush in response to the gutter level attacks he was under. The strategy backfired, as it has this time. But interestingly, this time McCain was not provoked to go negative. He was just losing. So what did he really learn in South Carolina?

if you want to live like a republican, vote democrat

Which political party has been better for American pocketbooks and capitalism as a whole? Here’s an experiment.

going cannibal

John McCain wants you to be afraid of Barack Obama, but McCain's the one who's scaring me these days by scapegoating two advocacy organizations - the Annenberg Foundation and ACORN - to score cheap political points.

Okay, ACORN has raised the ire of conservatives as many organizations seeking to politically empower the poor do. Read here to understand why the McCain campaign is attacking them (hint: to set the stage to contest the Nov 4 outcome). And here and here for ACORN's response (hint: McCain's attack is part of the same Republican voter suppression effort that led to the ousting of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Karl Rove for their role in the illegal firing of seven US Attorneys).

But Annenburg?? McCain has a web ad up claiming that "Ayers and Obama ran a radical education foundation together" referring to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.

The Annenberg Foundation has played a vital role in education reform efforts since 1989. I worked alongside them in Philadelphia in 1999 and 2000 while my organization and theirs tried to tackle the dismal situation in Philadelphia Public Schools. They were and are highly respected in the field for their generously funded and reform-minded projects.

Here's what they say on their website about the Annenberg Challenge grants that funded 18 projects around the country, including the one in Chicago:

"Announced in December 1993 at the White House (my emphasis), Ambassador Walter H. Annenberg's $500 million 'Challenge to the Nation' became the largest public/private endeavor in U.S. history dedicated to improving public schools.

Eighteen locally designed Challenge projects operated in 35 states, funding 2,400 public schools that served more than 1.5 million students and 80,000 teachers. Over 1,600 businesses, foundations, colleges, and universities, and individuals contributed $600 million in private matching funds.

Each Challenge project fit unique local conditions and was planned collaboratively by educators, foundation officers, and community, civic, and business leaders."

Hardly the stuff of radicalism and not even considered left-wing. In fact, Founder Walter Annenberg was a lifelong Republican and former ambassador to the United Kingdom under President Richard Nixon. His widow, Leonore, has endorsed McCain and contributed the maximum donation allowed to his presidential bid. She is a MAJOR donor to the Republican Party and its candidates. See here for details.

PolitiFact, a non-partisan fact checking organization, gave McCain's claim that the Chicago Annenberg Challenge was a radical foundation run by Obama and Bill Ayers a "Pants on Fire" rating, its worst. Read here for more.

As McCain's campaign goes from carnivorous to cannibalistic (first dismissing Republican pundits who've come out against Palin as "Georgetown cocktail party" people and now attacking Republican philanthropists), we can hope that this will come back to bite him. But I'm somewhat horrified to note that Obama slipped in the polls last week amidst the barrage of attacks from McCain/Palin.

Democrats can't take this election for granted and must stand up to the slander and voter intimidation tactics or 2008 will be Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004 all over again. Please get the word out so we can set the record straight!

oh dear

"After I whip his you-know-what in this debate..."

- John McCain, October 12, 2008

More scary stuff here.

more of the same

A woman stood up at a McCain town hall meeting, held at Lakeville South High School in a far suburb of Minneapolis, and told Mr. McCain that she could not trust Mr. Obama because he was an “Arab.”

Mr. McCain replied: “No, ma’am, he’s a decent family man, citizen who I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues. And that’s what this campaign is all about.” At that, the crowd applauded.

- New York Times, October 10, 2008

So the good news is that McCain is backing away from the despicable tone his campaign has set in the past week. But the bad news is that in doing so he has chosen to juxtapose being a decent family man and citizen with being an Arab.

Was it an intentional slur? Probably not. But what does it say about the man that his subconscious misses the obvious negative stereotype in her question? McCain's answer brushes right past it, essentially accepting the premise that to call Obama an Arab is to associate him with terrorists.

There are between 350 and 422 million Arabs in the world, with 1.4 million people of Arab descent living in the United States. I guess it's safe to say the McCain/Palin ticket is not counting on this voting block, although half of registered Arab-Americans are Republicans. (1)

But is it really necessary that McCain continue the cultural warfare between Arabs and Muslims (note to McCain supporters - these terms are not interchangeable) and the mythical group some people like to call "regular Americans"?

Here are a few "regular Americans" McCain's supporters may be surprised to learn are Arab-Americans:

Jerry Seinfeld, (Syrian Mother, Jewish) Golden Globe- and Emmy Award-winning comedian

F. Murray Abraham, Hollywood actor and Oscar winner for the film "Amadeus" (Syrian father)

Jamie Farr, (Lebanese) Hollywood actor especially famous for his role as Klinger in the TV series "M*A*S*H"

Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Inc. (Syrian father)

Danny Thomas, (Lebanese) actor and his daughter Marlo Thomas, actress

George J. Mitchell, (Lebanese) U.S. Senator from Maine, Senate Majority Leader

John H. Sununu, (Lebanese/Palestinian) Governor of New Hampshire and White House Chief of Staff under George H. W. Bush

Spencer Abraham, (Lebanese) Senator from Michigan and Secretary of Energy under George W. Bush

Helen Thomas, (Lebanese) reporter, columnist and White House correspondent

Sammy Hagar, (Lebanese), rock musician

Chris Kattan, (Iraqi Jewish father), comedian and actor, best known for his work on Saturday Night Live

Doug Flutie, (Lebanese) NFL Player


Here's one who happens not to be:

Barack Obama

Not that it matters.


(1)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_American

that one

Love this. From The NY Times today.

my friends, enough already

Just a few quick notes and links here related to last night's debate and the recent, ugly turn the McCain/Palin campaign has taken.

In the debate, once again, Senator McCain called for a spending freeze to deal with our current economic crisis. Let me be clear - the worst thing the government can do right now is to freeze spending. When no one is spending - government, individual citizens and businesses - jobs disappear, businesses collapse, families go bankrupt, governments are starved of tax revenues, unemployment and Medicare expenditures sky rocket creating huge deficits... am I making myself clear?

Consumers, sorry, citizens (still stuck in Bushspeak) were told to go shopping after 9/11 to shore up our economy, and look where it got us - mortgages we couldn't afford and the highest credit card debt ever recorded, nearly a trillion dollars(1). We aren't likely to fall for that line again, and if consumers aren't buying, businesses won't spend. So guess who's left? Either way, we're going to have deficits - with spending freezes that lead to lower tax revenues and raise welfare outflows or through job creation programs and healthcare reform that alleviates financial pressure on citizens and businesses. Only Obama's plan has a light at the end of the tunnel.

And did anyone catch this nonsensical exchange:

BROKAW: The three -- health care, energy, and entitlement reform: Social Security and Medicare. In what order would you put them in terms of priorities?

MCCAIN: I think you can work on all three at once, Tom. I think it's very important that we reform our entitlement programs.

My friends, we are not going to be able to provide the same benefit for present-day workers that we are going -- that present-day retirees have today. We're going to have to sit down across the table, Republican and Democrat, as we did in 1983 between Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill.

I know how to do that. I have a clear record of reaching across the aisle, whether it be Joe Lieberman or Russ Feingold or Ted Kennedy or others. That's my clear record.

We can work on nuclear power plants. Build a whole bunch of them, create millions of new jobs. We have to have all of the above, alternative fuels, wind, tide, solar, natural gas, clean coal technology. All of these things we can do as Americans and we can take on this mission and we can overcome it.

My friends, some of this $700 billion ends up in the hands of terrorist organizations.

As far as health care is concerned, obviously, everyone is struggling to make sure that they can afford their premiums and that they can have affordable and available health care. That's the next issue.

But we can do them all at once. There's no -- and we have to do them all at once. All three you mentioned are compelling national security requirements.

What $700 billion? Going to terrorists? Reagan and Tip O'Neill? Does anyone under 50 know what he's talking about? And by the way, we are not even going to get the Social Security benefit that seniors get today - the one that makes them choose between medicine and food?

Now, about the campaigning of late. Has anyone else noticed that the McCain/Palin campaign is going after the white racist vote? Thankfully, yes. Three takes on it:

John Stewart on how McCain/Palin is inciting angry mobs

Roland Martin of CNN on the euphamisms Joe Six-Pack, Soccer Mom, NASCAR Dad, and Small Town America

The New York Times on how Palin's demagoguery has elicited some frightening, intolerable responses

(1) http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/04/plastic_problems.html

what don't they understand?

As a photography student at New York University, I learned of the Farm Security Administration (FSA) and its cousin under FDR's New Deal, the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The FSA is famous for its small but highly influential photography program that ran from 1935-44 and realistically portrayed the challenges of rural poverty. It garnered support not only for its own projects but no doubt for other major New Deal projects such as the Tennessee Valley Authority which built dams to simultaneously provide jobs and electricity to the very poor in southeastern states. Many of the most famous Depression-era photographers were fostered by the FSA project, including Dorothea Lange, Gordon Parks, and Walker Evans. You may recall seeing some of their works:




Through the FSA, I learned of the Works Project Administration, established by President Roosevelt in 1935, which provided jobs and income to the unemployed during the Great Depression. The program built many public buildings, projects and roads and operated large arts, drama, media and literacy projects. It fed children and redistributed food, clothing and housing(2). On a personal note, nothing has ever tied together so neatly my love of photography and passion for progressive social policy as the FSA, which is why I share the connection and the images here.

But onto my point. Senator Obama has been criticized of late for being anything from cautious to absent (depending on your political leanings) in the current economic debate because he has yet to put forth a plan to deal with the crisis.

This is baffling to me, because he does have a plan and he's been talking about it since at least February 13 and most succinctly here. Five core underpinnings define that plan:

1. A National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank to rebuild our crumbling roads and bridges and create jobs
2. Investments in new energy technology, in part to create jobs
3. Near-universal healthcare to alleviate expenses for families and businesses
4. Closing the gap between the middle and upper classes with a progressive tax policy to put purchasing power back in the hands of the middle class
5. Investments in education for future growth

The first two proposals create jobs through government works projects and incentives to the private sector. And jobs are what we need right now. Obama's healthcare plan would alleviate the crushing cost of healthcare for families and businesses. These costs prevent families from investing in education or debt reduction and diminish businesses' ability to invest in new technologies or compete globally. Closing the gap between rich and middle to lower income people through progressive tax policy puts real purchasing power back in the hands of the spending classes versus the savings class (see my last post), creating demand for goods and services, which in turn creates more jobs. And investments in education keep us competitive globally going forward.

This plan mirrors the economic policies of twentieth-century British economist John Maynard Keynes that FDR employed as he wrestled to get the US out of the Great Depression. The National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank (NIRB) is a modern day WPA using government spending to provide much needed jobs and to complete public works which in turn yield improved infrastructure that businesses can use to transport goods more cheaply.

New jobs mean more money in the pockets of Americans, which stimulates demand, which leads to more business investment, which in turn creates more jobs, and so on. Keynes called this a multiplier effect. He argued that government spending should be used in times of recession in order to counteract an economy on a downward spiral and provide more long-term economic stability. In other words, when individuals and business stop spending for fear of a recession, which tends only to exacerbate or fulfill the expectation of that recession, then demand decreases and leads to less business investment, which leads to fewer jobs, then less consumer spending and so forth. It is at this point that only government can step in and reverse the economic freefall by creating a multiplier effect through investments until the economy is once again self-sustaining.

As for Obama's healthcare plan and tax policy which favor the middle and lower class, Keynes believed that fiscal policy should be directed towards the lower-income segment of the population, because that segment is more likely to spend the money, contributing to demand, than to save it(3). As I wrote in my last post, FDR's Federal Reserve Chief blamed much of the depression on a concentration of wealth in the upper class.

In March 2007, Senator Obama warned of the housing crisis and a year later in a speech in Manhattan he called for investment banks, mortgage brokers and hedge funds to be regulated much as commercial banks are, the streamlining of overlapping regulatory agencies, and the creation of a commission to monitor threats to the financial system and report to the White House and Congress - six months and several bank failures before John McCain called for the same types of reform(4).

Jobs creation through public works and new energy investments, closing the gap between rich and poor through progressive tax policy and healthcare reform, tighter banking regulations, improved business environment through improved infrastructure and lower healthcare costs - in short, a plan that draws on what's gotten us out of tough economic times before... what don't the pundits understand?

Maybe they wanted Obama to say something new? But Senator Obama's economic plan has always addressed the current crisis, because unlike most pundits, he's seen it coming all along. Maybe they just need to catch up with him.


(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farm_Security_Administration
(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration
(3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_economics
(4) http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/...

reading between the doggones, betchas, and bless yer hearts

The problem with politicians who believe that government can't possibly work for the people is that when they take office they do everything they can to fulfill that prophecy. Just think Katrina.

So when Sarah Palin said on Thursday evening in her debate with Senator Biden, "Patriotic is saying, government, you know, you're not always the solution. In fact, too often you're the problem," it sent chills down my spine. Because if we look back at the last three Republican administrations and a possible McCain/Palin administration, she's right.

Steven Labaton writes in today's New York Times about a decision taken by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2004, under pressure from top investment banks (Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs), to relax regulations on debt to capital ratios which would allow those same banks to 'leverage up' and free up billions of dollars to invest in mortgage-backed securities, credit default swaps and other complex derivatives, and that they be allowed to self-regulate these activities. Ya know, get government out of the way.

When have we heard this before? Ah yes, 1999. As governor of Texas, George W. Bush signed a law enabling most major industrial polluters to audit their own pollution records, provided they reported them, in exchange for which there would be absolute protection from public disclosure. He also championed tort reform which made it more difficult for individual citizens to sue these companies.(1)

In the end, investment banks collapsed under the weight of their own debt and Texas continued to lead the nation in air pollution volume.

Whether it's through deregulation, lax oversight, incompetent agency managers, or managers who lobbied for the very industries they now regulate, the Bush Administration followed the pattern set in Texas, and has, in its own circular logic, proven the theory of ineffective government.

Now, in the bitterest of ironies, it is the government that is called on to bail out one of the most deregulated and unsupervised industries. And thanks to Bush, the effort is lead by one of the bank chiefs who pressured the SEC to relax the rules on capital holdings in the first place, Treasury Secretary and former Goldman Sachs CEO, Henry Paulson. And no one believes he can do it well, because no one trusts the government to do anything right.

So where do we go from here?

We can follow Sarah Palin's lead, if we believe government is never the solution. If we want to continue to bail out reckless industry titans, watch our social security go the way of our 401(k)s through privatization, our kids' toys continue to be coated in lead paint, our school cafeterias continue to receive the poorest quality meats from our nation's grossly under-supervised meat processing plants; if we want to no longer trust the drinking water that comes out of our taps or trust that the bridges we drive over won't collapse, by all means, we should vote for the ticket that doesn't believe that government matters.

In a more amusing irony, Governor Palin said in her closing statement, "It was Ronald Reagan who said that freedom is always just one generation away from extinction. We... have to fight for it and protect it, ... or we're going to find ourselves spending our sunset years telling our children and our children's children about a time in America, back in the day, when men and women were free."

Ronald Reagan was warning against the socialist threat of Medicare, a government program now widely considered to be, along with Social Security, the third rail of government.(2) Why? Because they provide real solutions for real Americans.

(1) www.texasobserver.org/article.php?aid=670 and www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2002/jun/16/features.magazine57
(2) www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/opinion/04herbert.html?ref=opinion

it's deja vu all over again... or is it?

Marriner S. Eccles, who served as Franklin D. Roosevelt's Chairman of the Federal Reserve from November 1934 to February 1948, detailed what he believed caused the Depression in his memoirs, Beckoning Frontiers:

As mass production has to be accompanied by mass consumption, mass consumption, in turn, implies a distribution of wealth to provide men with buying power equal to the amount of goods and services offered by the nation's economic machinery.

Instead of achieving that kind of distribution, a giant suction pump had by 1929-30 drawn into a few hands an increasing portion of currently produced wealth. This served them as capital accumulations. But by taking purchasing power out of the hands of mass consumers, the savers denied to themselves the kind of effective demand for their products that would justify a reinvestment of their capital accumulations in new plants. In consequence, as in a poker game where the chips were concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the other fellows could stay in the game only by borrowing. When their credit ran out, the game stopped.

That is what happened to us in the twenties.

That's what's happening to us now with tax policies that distribute more wealth to the rich, a credit-fueled housing boom (now gone bust), and inflation in commodities such as eggs and gas that disproportionately takes wealth away from those in the lower income brackets.

Robert Reich, Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton, wrote in February of this year:

We're sliding into recession, or worse, and Washington is turning to the normal remedies for economic downturns. But the normal remedies are not likely to work this time, because this isn’t a normal downturn.

The problem lies deeper. It is the culmination of three decades during which American consumers have spent beyond their means. That era is now coming to an end. Consumers have run out of ways to keep the spending binge going.

And...

The underlying problem has been building for decades. America’s median hourly wage is barely higher than it was 35 years ago, adjusted for inflation. The income of a man in his 30s is now 12 percent below that of a man his age three decades ago. Most of what’s been earned in America since then has gone to the richest 5 percent.

Yet the rich devote a smaller percentage of their earnings to buying things than the rest of us because, after all, they’re rich. They already have most of what they want. Instead of buying, and thus stimulating the American economy, the rich are more likely to invest their earnings wherever around the world they can get the highest return. (More here.)

Just what Eccles attributed the Great Depression to - more money to the wealthy and less to the middle class. Middle class buying power based on credit and not real assets. And remember all that capital sloshing around from my last post that's wreaking havoc with our financial system? That's what the rich are doing with their excess wealth.

Now, all this is not to say that we are necessarily headed for another depression. In fact this time, we may actually get a do-over. First, as noted earlier, we have the chance, if Congress can get its act together, to flood the market with capital and ease the credit crunch. (By the way, as of September 30, lending rates between banks have hit and all-time high.)

Second, we can elect Barack Obama as our next president and put the middle class back on firmer ground. Eccles went on to write:

Had there been a better distribution of the current income from the national product -- in other words, had there been less savings by business and the higher-income groups and more income in the lower groups -- we should have had far greater stability in our economy. Had the six billion dollars, for instance, that were loaned by corporations and wealthy individuals for stock-market speculation been distributed to the public as lower prices or higher wages and with less profits to the corporations and the well-to-do, it would have prevented or greatly moderated the economic collapse that began at the end of 1929.

Obama's tax plan does just what Eccles recommends by giving tax breaks to the middle class and recinding the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy - that disastrous policy McCain supports. See for yourself:

(from The Washington Post)

A healthy middle class means a healthy America.