March 16, 2005

Annoying and Annoyinger Get Promotions
Holy moly, what’s the rest of the world to think? First President Bush appoints John “In Your Face” Bolton as our new ambassador to the United Nations. Bolton has never missed an opportunity to express his utter distain for the UN. Here’s a guy who told reporters that the UN was so full of useless deadwood if the top ten floors of the UN building were blown off it would make no difference to the UN’s performance. Maybe he’s right about that, but if you are going to send someone to represent the US at the world’s premier DIPLOMATIC body, shouldn’t he be at the very least, diplomatic?

Now Bush nominates Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz to be the next president of the World Bank. Wolfowitz, the same man who told Congress not to worry about how much war with Iraq might cost because Iraq’s own oil supplies would more than pay the cost of the war. Two years and quarter trillion US dollars later Iraq’s oil production still can’t even meet domestic needs, much less pay for its own reconstruction or defense.

The Wolfowitz appointment is truly puzzling. The World Bank has been second only to the World Trade Organization, as the focus of distrust by international pro-labor and environmental groups. Neither organization can hold it’s annual meetings without the streets of the host city being filled by protestors.

So what do you do to improve the image of the 184-nation World Bank? Well, if you’re George W. Bush you appoint the guy credited as chief architect of the most internationally unpopular war since Vietnam.

What’s Bush thinking? There are a couple of possible explanations. The most benign is that both Bolton and Wolfowitz, while they served a purpose in his first term, had become liabilities and Bush wanted them gone for his second term.

Bolton’s job during the first term was to make trouble for Secretary of State Colin Powell whenever Powell strayed from the White House playbook on the Middle East. More often than not Bolton was the mysterious “unnamed State Dept. official” quoted in stories that complicated Powell’s life.

Wolfowitz, even more so than Don Rumsfeld, holds professional Pentagon brass in unveiled contempt. They are military “lifers,” and Wolfowitz believes he has more practical experience than they do. Wolfowitz considers himself the smartest person in any room he happens to be in at the moment -- and woe be the person who contradicts him.

So with these two appointments Bush may be simply be giving himself a “two-fer.” First, he gets rid of two individuals who have become damaged goods by doing his bidding during his first term. And – here’s the bonus – he gets to pass these two troublesome guys off onto international organizations he dislikes. (I can just hear Bush and Rove chuckling when the idea dawned on them.)

The other theory is that Bush is sending these two aggressive neo-cons to the UN and the World Bank with specific marching orders. You can use your imagination on what those orders might be. But of the two theories I subscribe to the first.

New Secretary of State, Condi Rice found John Bolton useful in undermining her dovish predecessor when she was in the White House. But the last thing she wants now is for Bolton to cause that kind of trouble for her -- and she knows he would.

Over at the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld wants to leave, but not before his vision of a more streamlined US military force is set in cement. That will require he get Pentagon brass on board. The last thing Rumsfeld wants is Wolfowitz dissing and pissing off the generals at every important meeting.

What we are seeing here is a continuation of a long-standing tradition in government; when someone becomes a problem, promote them -- kick them up the ladder to some other agency.

Of course none of that makes these two appointments anymore acceptable. Bolton will only cause more friction between the US and the UN, not less. And if reforming the UN is the goal Bolton’s abrasive ways will only cause already recalcitrant members to dig their heels in deeper. I predict Bolton’s tenure will be short and stormy. And, when he leaves in a couple of years, nothing much will have changed -- because diplomats react poorly to undiplomatic bullying.

The same goes for Wolfowitz. If he is confirmed as the head of the World Bank he will quickly insult the bank’s members who believe they are at least as smart, (and considering how wrong he was about the cost of the Iraq war, probably smarter,) than he is.

In Other News
Bernie Bites The Big One: Former WorldCom Inc. chief executive Bernard J. Ebbers was found guilty yesterday of fraud in the collapse of WorldCom Inc. The conviction must have sent chills down the spin of former Enron Chairman, Ken Lay.

"This is a fatal blow to the 'the CEO is above it all and out of the loop' defense," said attorney Jacob S. Frenkel. "This goes to show that CEOs can be held accountable..”

Well great. So here’s a CEO whot needs to be held accountable too: Halliburton CEO David Lesar. I am not implying he is guilty of anything, just that we need a criminal investigation into $108 million US taxpayer dollars that went missing while under his supervision.

Was it stolen? Does he know? Or was he “out of the loop?” Let’s at least find out.


Not Worth a Greenback Dollar: The US dollar is quickly losing its status as the world's main reserve currency as Asian banks dump dollars fearing the effects of America’s ballooning trade and budget deficits.

Over the past three years, central banks in the region have been quietly scaling back their holdings of US dollars to avoid a run on the dollar. Such a run would only cause those countries to lose money on their US dollar holdings. So they are moving slowly, quietly, but steadily out of dollar investments.

While the Bush administration continues to whistle past the cemetery when asked about these two deficits, Asians know this kind of trouble when they see it. And, they know where leads. A report by the Bank for International Settlements has estimated that the share of deposits held in US currency by Asian banks dropped to 67 per cent in the September quarter of 2004, down from 81 per cent of total deposits three years earlier.
Like Ronald Reagan, Bush will leave a giant financial mess behind for his successor. Oh, and for the rest of us too.

Remember WIN? Which reminds me of Gerald Ford and his “WIN” buttons. Those of you old enough to remember the Ford administration will recall that inflation was blazing right along in the double digits. Ford took the bull by the horns and by launching his “Whip Inflation Now” campaign. The idea was to get everyone to wear one of these “WIN” buttons and inflation would abate. The only person I ever saw wearing a WIN button was President Ford, and then only at the news conference in which he unveiled his secret weapon.

Recalling this my curiosity was peeked. Since this was government operation you have to know they printed up millions of those damn buttons. So where are they now? I bet that in some government warehouse there are unopened crates of WIN buttons collecting dust. Does anyone out there know?


The reason I bring this up is because Bush’s successor will want to have them hauled out and dusted off. Because he/she is gonna need them once inflation is ignited by these twin deficits. As Ford discovered, once inflation gets rolling there’s little more that can be done but ride it out while wearing a silly button.

By Stephen Pizzo

Raconteur at Large

Miss yesterday's column? It's right

March 15, 2005

Two Questions

Question No.1: How much does a company have to steal from taxpayers before someone gets indicted?

I cut my journalistic teeth on corporate fraud. The first thing I learned investigating allegations of financial fraud was – sure, “to follow the money,” but also that if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, get the orange sauce ready.

For the past two years Halliburton has been quacking like a 2-ton duck bellied up to our national ATM. So, I was wondering, why hasn’t anyone shot the felonious fowl yet?

Yesterday the GAO disclosed they had discovered one of Halliburton’s well-feathered nests with $108 million of stolen federal funds in it. Of course no in Washington uses such an indelicate term as “stolen,” because that would require the handcuffs to come out. Instead they call these little affairs “overcharges.”

What’s an overcharge? Well, there are two types of overcharges, accidental and purposeful. We can forget the accidental type here because Halliburton insists it deserves to be paid as it billed.

So, a purposeful overcharges is when a company purposely bills a customer for more than what the customer really owes. If the customer pays the bill the difference between what was really owed and what was paid as an overcharge is money stolen from the customer.

We need other element to prove guilt. Under federal law a person must mean to commit a financial crime. So far the GAO has released only one piece of evidence we can examine to determine Halliburton’s state of mind, but it's a doozy.

After the fall of the Saddam regime Halliburton billed the government $82,000 for some liquefied natural gas. Then Halliburton billed the government $27 million dollars for transporting it from Kuwait to Baghdad. That’s about 300 miles – a taxi bill that comes to something like $90,000 a mile.

And that’s just one of the dozens of “questionable” Halliburton billings since the company bagged the lion’s share of post-Iraq war contracts.

Quack, quack, quack… the noise has become deafening. Yet the Department of Justice shows more interest in what library books we taxpayers are checking out of our local libraries than the hundreds of millions of our dollars disappearing into Halliburton’s coffers.

I know members of Congress read the same news I read, and they get the GAO’s report as well. So, why are subpoenas going to just baseball players this week and not Halliburton execs as well? You might want to ask your member of Congress to explain that one. Here, let me make it easy for you.

But don’t expect much. Democrats have triangulated themselves into such a powerless state that we now have a defacto one-party government. I have stopped expecting Democrats to do anything but talk.

What about Republicans? Aren’t these the folks who rose to power with their “Contract with America?” Didn’t they then, and ever since, promise to bring fiscal responsibility back? Aren’t they the party of America’s “moral rebirth?” Don’t they preach that people should be held responsible for their actions?

Well, yeah, that’s the GOP all right, but you missed the small print in that contract. Fiscal responsibility? Sure, but only when it comes to domestic social programs. The small print must have also excluded no-bid contracts for connected companies. And, since there was no bid, how could there be an overcharge? Right? I get it.

So, even though the nation now struggles under the weight of half trillion-dollar annual budget deficits, no one is overly concerned about a Halliburton looting the treasury for a few hundred bil. Where’s the outrage over this? Where?

In the old days.. the 1980’s, representatives like Henry “Hank” Gonzalez, D-Texas, would spend hours on the House Floor after everyone went home, lambasting the administration and corporate crooks for all to watch on C-Span. He read aloud from investigator’s reports, and he named names.

Where are the Henry Gonzalez’s today? Nowhere.

Memo to Democrats. Maybe all you have the power to do right now is talk. So use it. Talk. Talk loudly. Stand up for all of us who don’t have seats on the Halliburton gravy train. Make Hank proud.

Memo to Any Federal Prosecutor Out there Who Possesses BOTH Jurisdiction AND Balls:
Can we have a criminal grand jury take a look at Halliburton’s “overcharges?” Give Halliburton its day in court. They deserve nothing less. And so do we.

Question No. 2: What does it take for religious non-profits to lose their tax-exempt status for violating its tax-exempt status?

Over the past decade or so I have watched as the Christian Right have walked up to, and then stepped across the line into political advocacy. Now I am a democrat – small “d” – to the bone. I want every American to participate in the political process. But when a tax-exempt religious group does so they are violating the terms of their contract with the nation.

If they want a different tax law for religious political activity then let Congress debate it. But the Christian Right is not about to do that, for two reasons. First, it fears they will lose that vote. And, if the DChristian Right won, it would mean non-Christian tax-exempt groups would jump into the game in opposition to their agendas.

But they don’t have to do anything because, with a Christian-friendly administration in power, they already have the best of all possible worlds. They can aggressively push their evangelical Christian agenda in the political arena without worry that this administration will yank their tax-exempt status.

How sure are they? Pretty damn sure. Just feels the cocky surety in a story in today’s Washington Post:

"To fundamentalist Christians....the fight to teach God's role in creation is becoming the essential front in America's culture war. The issue is on the agenda at every meeting of pastors he attends. If evolution's boosters can be forced to back down, he said, the Christian right's agenda will advance…."If you believe God created that baby, it makes it a whole lot harder to get rid of that baby ....If you can cause enough doubt on evolution, liberalism will die."

The story goes on to explain how the Christian Right is launching a nationwide push to force public schools to give so-called “Creation Science” equal billing with the teaching of evolution. And they are not limiting themselves to just shouting down secular school boards either. These Christian soldiers are marching right across the political barrier:

“From offices overlooking Puget Sound, Meyer is waging a careful campaign to change the way Americans think about the natural world. The Discovery Institute devotes about 85 percent of its budget to funding scientists, with other money going to public action campaigns.”

So, why aren’t these groups under IRS investigation for violating their tax-exempt status? If they want to play in the political arena they should have their assets taxed. If they want to keep their tax-exempt status they can do so by simply keeping their teachings where the law intended, in church.

But don’t expect either Republicans or Democrats in Congress to do anything about this trend. Republicans are happy to see their superficial “moral agenda” on the march, not because they are moral but because polls show that churchgoers tend to vote Republican. So for the GOP the Christian Right is a stealth-recruiting device.

Democrats are terrified by the whole faith-based phenomena. They quake in fear that anything they say against the Christian Right will only result in them being accused by these proselytizing little energizer bunnies of being secular godless heathens.

While the Christian Right is complaining about how schools are not teaching the whole story on evolution, maybe the rest of us should insist they also teach the full story about just how the Puritans ended up camping in mud huts in the New World.

In grammar school we were taught that the Puritans came the New World because they were being “persecuted,” in Europe. Well, yeah, sorta. But there’s two sides that story. Europeans chased the Puritans out when -- as the Brits like to put it – they got tired of those sanctimonious, goodie two-shoes “getting up everyone’s nose” about everything all the time.”

Now they are getting up our noses – and getting tax breaks to boot.

Update: A reader's brilliant suggestion:

Perhaps it is time for those who do not believe the biblical story of creation to start saying that if real science, such as evolution, must come with a warning label then so too should every bible. I suggest something like this:

"WARNING: This book contains information about "God" or "Jesus". There is no scientific proof of the existence of a "Supreme Being," nor any scientific proof of the possibility of a "virgin" birth, nor has any historical evidence ever been found that proves any person identified as Jesus Christ was the son of a supernatural being. Such statements made in this book are only theories."

Thanks to "P.H."

March 14, 2005

DeLaying Democracy

I hope all the Middle Eastern nations are not watching how the very folks lecturing them about fostering democracy over there treat our own democracy here at home. Even Lebanese/Syrian-stooge politicians would blush at the kind of behavior we can watch everyday lately in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

While the Republican majority is allegedly led by House Speaker, Dennis Hassert, the real power is Majority Leader, Tom DeLay of Sugarland, Texas.

It is hard to find a Middle Eastern pretend-legislature led by such a breathlessly ruthless and obvious thug as Tom “The Hammer” DeLay. If he had been born in Queens as Tom DeLessio he would have almost certainly risen quickly through the ranks of John Gotti’s gang – and probably taken it over.

Here’s a man who has turned on his own mother - literally. He has not spoken to mom in years. A reporter who followed DeLay around for month and interviewed DeLay's mother, wrote that his aging mother continues trying to contact her son but he will not return her calls. So she videotapes her son whenever he appears on TV because it's the only way she can see him. What a putz.

"The family thing is, is, uh, 54 years now, developing and, and at some point in time when you have a dysfunctional family, you either succumb to that dysfunction or you decide … that you need to be doing something else. ..at some point in time you just move on and, uh, try to create those relationships with other people, and keep moving forward. It's the way it goes." (DeLay when asked why he refuses to talk to either his brother or mother.)

So much for GOP “family values.”

Even the reason Tom DeLay got into politics is telling. Before coming to Congress he ran a bug extermination company in Sugarland. Then the EPA banned the insecticide DDT. It seems DDT was DeLay’s favorite bug killer and the ban, he believed, was an abuse of federal power. So he ran for an open congressional seat and won.

From that day forward DeLay’s new “bugs” became liberals in Congress. And, his ruthless pursuit of them has been unnervingly successful. Once a liberal-dominated hive, the House and Senate are now dominated by Republicans. And much of that success is because of Tom DeLay.

How did he do it? By perverting the very democratic processes his own party is now championing around the world. Want a recent example? Here:

“The House, facing new controversy about the travel of Majority Leader Tom DeLay and other lawmakers, was left last night with no mechanism for investigating improper behavior by its members when Democrats shut down the ethics committee by refusing to accept Republican rules changes that restrict the panel's power…. The committee met in secret for 2 1/2 hours. It was the first meeting since House Speaker J. Dennis Hassert (R-Ill.) replaced the chairman and two other members with lawmakers more loyal to the leadership. "These rules undermine the ability of the committee to do its job," Rep. Alan B. Mollohan (W.Va.), the panel's top Democrat, said in an interview after a 5 to 5 vote that stalemated action. "An ethics committee has to do a good job if it's going to do any job at all."” (Washington Post)

What happened? Are Dems just be obstructionist? Not this time. This time it’s all about abuse of power and the subversion of Ethics Committee rules. And, it’s all about payback GOP Godfather, Tom DeLay whose Valentine Day Massacre redistricting of Texas, and his strong-arm fundraising, helped his gang win majorities in both houses.

And their Godfather has been calling in those favors in his time of need, and The Hammer will not, cannot, be denied.

So, as Texas prosecutors investigating illegal corporate fund raising closed in on DeLay, and the Ethics Committee was presented with its fourth complaint about DeLay taking favors from corporations, foreign and domestic, rules had to be changed to protect him and his position.

First the GOP changed it’s own party’s rule that an indicted member must step down. The new rule says an indicted member must be convicted before having to step down.

Last night’s Ethic Committee flap came after House Speaker Hassert removed 2 GOP members who were squishy on protecting DeLay, replacing them with two new GOP members who are in hock up to their eyeballs to The Hammer and have even contributed to DeLay’s legal defense fund.

One more rule had to be changed to protect their patron. The Ethics Committee is split 50/50 between the two parties, five Republicans, five Democrats. Under the old, longstanding, rule, a deadlock vote on investigating a claim was the same as a majority vote for an investigation. The rule was a commonsense recognition that no party wants its own people investigated and always wants the other party investigated. So, a tie vote was a vote for investigating a claim.

The GOP majority decided that was not a good rule – for DeLay who had been investigated and admonished by the Ethics Committee three times already. So they turned that rule on its head. Now a tie vote is a vote for NO investigation.

Are you watching all this, Syria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia? What Republicans are trying to show you here is that you need not fear democracy. Because you can have it both ways – democracy and still run things anyway you want to. All you need to do is change the rules – democratically of course – whenever they are inconvenient.

Make no mistake about this. Tom DeLay runs the GOP-controlled House, just as surely and ruthlessly as John Gotti ran his mob family.

DeLay is the most corrupt and evil individual to hold so much national power in modern times. Even Joe McCarthy pales by comparison. DeLay is also a brilliant strategist -- and therefore the most dangerous.

Tom DeLay
In His Own Words

DeLay on causes of the Columbine High School massacre:
"Guns have little or nothing to do with juvenile violence. The causes of youth violence are working parents who put their kids into daycare, the teaching of evolution in the schools, and working mothers who take birth control pills."

DeLay on separation of church and state:
" I don't believe there is a separation of church and state. I think the Constitution is very clear. The only separation is that there will not be a government church."


DeLay on religion and public policy:

"Our entire system is built on the Judeo-Christian ethic, but it fell apart when we started denying God. If you stand up today and acknowledge God, they will try to destroy you... My mission is to bring us back to the Constitution and to Absolute Truth that has been manipulated and destroyed by a liberal worldview."

• "People hate the messenger. That's why they killed Christ."
• "Give me one example that proves evolution. One example! You can't."

DeLay on politics:
"George W. is really saying the same things we are, only we are saying them differently."

DeLay on Judges:
“The judges need to be intimidated, they need to uphold the Constitution. If they don't behave, we're going to go after them in a big way."

DeLay on DeLay:

• "I look mean because I have squinty eyes and I get passionate. But it comes across as mean on camera."
• "I am still trying to drive the president. I am not gonna sit back and let things happen."
• "I wanted to be Speaker (of the House.) My ego did. And God did not want me to. It took me three or four days of praying and really thinking."

DeLay after returning from a tour of unregulated garment factories in the Marianas, which are a US protectorate:
Responding to a reporter’s question about accusations he supported “sweatshops” where Chinese immigrates were being exploited and where women who got pregnant were forced to have abortions:

“I toured those factories. They were air-conditioned. I didn’t see anyone sweating.”

(Editor's Note. I will not be filing on Monday. I'm taking the day off. You got a problem with that? Stephen "The Blogger" Pizzo.

By Stephen Pizzo

Raconteur at Large

March 11, 2005

Screwed Again

Are you sitting down? Glad I was when I read this morning that the Treasury Dept… the people in charge of our national checkbook -- wasted $173 million on a failed human resources computer system. That’s right. This comes one day after we learned the FBI wasted $170 million on a computerized case management system.

When I wrote about the FBI boondoggle I wondered out loud just who got most of that money. I was going to find out who got paid for failing. Well I did and I was not surprised to discover that it was San Diego-based Science Applications International Corp., a company I have been writing about since 1993 when they ended up with the exclusive contract to register Internet domain names. A look at SAIC’s board of directors at the time read like a Who’s Who of retired CIA, NSA and Pentagon brass.

(SAIC blames the 9/11 attacks for failure of their Virtual Case File system.)

Years later I would write again about SAIC, this time because it, along with Halliburton and Computer Science Corp. (CSC) were landing millions in no-bid contracts in Iraq.

Oh, look! What a coincidence! When I checked to see who got paid to install the failed human resources system at the Dept. of Treasury it was… ta da… CSC. A subsidiary of CSC, DynCorp, is the largest and most controversial provider of private security services in Iraq. When the company was hired by the US to provide the same kind of security services in Kosovo some of CSC’s thugs ended up being charged by UN officials with being part of a sex-slavery operation.

Kathryn Bolkovac, a U.N. International Police Force monitor filed a lawsuit in Britain in 2001 against DynCorp for firing her after she reported that Dyncorp police trainers in Bosnia were paying for prostitutes and participating in sex trafficking. Many of the Dyncorp employees were forced to resign under suspicion of illegal activity. But none were prosecuted, since they enjoy immunity from prosecution in Bosnia. (www.corpwatch.org)

Nevertheless, CSC and its subsidaries continue getting plenty of taxpayer money. DynCorp troops protect Afghan president Hamid Karzai. DynCorp planes and pilots fly the defoliation missions over the coca crops in Colombia. Dyncorp is in charge of the border posts between the US and Mexico, Pentagon's weapons-testing ranges and the entire fleet of Air Force One presidential planes and helicopters. (Talk about holding the President's life in your hands!)

Among the plumest of plum contracts handed out in the wake of the war in Iraq was one to SAIC to rebuild and run the entire Iraqi news broadcast system. The broadcasts were so obviously US propaganda they became a running joke within Iraq and at one point nearly the entire Iraqi news staff quit. In the end SAIC failed and was removed from the job... but were paid anyway.

So, as I predicted yesterday, we learn all we need to know about how $343 million of our tax dollars were pissed away on two failed federal agency computer systems. And why those responsible have not been name, investigated, charged or even sued.

SAIC and CSC, like Halliburton, are about as well-connected as companies can be. They get to play by different rules than other private sector companies. For them failure is not only an option, but they get paid for it. We should all be so lucky. When I fail to deliver a product I don’t get paid. When these companies fail they not only get paid but get more work from the client they just screwed.

By now you may be asking, so where is Congress? Ah, not to worry. Congress is hot on the trail. They are demanding a full investigation. The subpoenas are a flying like snowflakes along the Potomac. Congress is going to get to the bottom of – steroid use by baseball players.

And the mainstream media – where are they” On the case. They are camped out. Watching every move. Filing regular updates from both the west and east coasts, nothing gets by them. Martha’s cappuccino machine was BROKEN when she got home from prison. And the Jimmy Olsons on the West Coast filed second by second reports on Michael Jackson showing up late for court in his PAJAMAS!

Memo to Democrats: You puffed up pack of self-congratulatory windbags. Why aren’t you raising holy hell about these contracts and companies and their connections to the Bush administration? Do we need to do your job for you? Are you like these companies – getting paid for failing us?

Memo to Mainstream Media: You puffed up pack of self-congratulatory windbags. Why aren’t you raising holy hell about these contracts and companies and their connections to the Bush administration? Do we need to do your job for you? Are you like these companies – getting paid for failing us?

Grrrrrrrrrrr! It took me less than thirty minutes and two web searches to find out who was paid for failing in both these cases. Do you think maybe you can take it from here now?

Let me give you some help getting started:
SAIC Backgrounders
CSC Backgrounders

Now, damn it, get to work. You have to know that there are more of these multi-million dollar taxpayer screwings going on at other federal departments. Do you think, maybe, by the same companies?

Wanna bet? Oh look what one more Web search turned up:

“Northrop Grumman Corp. won the $281 million Defense Integrated Military Human Resources System (DIMHRS) contract to develop and implement the world's largest HR system.”

I wonder how that puppy is doing?

Democracy’s Double Edges
When anti-Syrian crowds filled the streets in Lebanon last week the Bush administration saw it as more proof that they had unleashed Democracy throughout the Middle East. And they were right. The trouble is, (as we know only too well over here,) Democracy is a messy and uncertain business. Sometimes good prevails. But, sometimes evil is able to finagle its way into power.

Fast-forward a week: The streets in Beirut are full of demonstrators again --hundreds of thousands of them, far more than last week. Only this time they are Lebanese supporters of radical Islamic Hezbollah, that owes its very existence to Syrian and Iranian support. They want Syria to stay in Lebanon.

By the look of the size and discipline of those crowds today, if a democratic vote were held today, Hezbollah/Syria would win hands down.

Lebanon will hold elections in May. The Bush administration is demanding that Syria have all its troops and intelligence agents back on the Syrian side of the boarder before that because – and Bush said this with a completely straight face -- Lebanon could not have free and open elections while occupied by a foreign power. (If you take those words at straight-face value one can only assume that Iraq and Afghanistan did not have “free and open elections” since both nations were, and remain, occupied up to their headscarves by foreign nations. But then that would be a nuance, and Bush doesn’t do nuances.)

Today’s demonstration by the Islamo-fascist Helzbollah indicates that, over the last quarter century, Syria has built a grassroots political base in Lebanon Karl Rove could only dream of commanding here. Bad guys, you see, can play democracy too.
So, for the Bush Neo-cons all this is a good news, bad news story. The good news is that democracy is indeed on the march in the Middle East.

The bad news is that democracy is indeed on the march in the Middle East.

Minimum Compassion
Remember the Bush “ownership society?” Well yesterday the Republican dominated House and Senate trimmed back on its membership. They did so by refusing to raise the minimum wage from its current niggardly $5.15 an hour by $2.10. Republicans decided that raising the minimum wage by that much might limit the amount of ownership employers could enjoy. Instead they suggested the minimum wage be increased by the minimum, just a buck in slow increments over the next year and half.

As usual Republicans cloaked their position with compassionate Orwellian logic. By refusing to a fair increase, they were just looking after the best interest of low-wage workers.

``Large increases in the minimum wage will hurt low-income, low-skilled individuals -- the very workers proponents claim they want to help,'' said Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyoming.




(Hell, if that’s right then the best way to help low-skilled, low-wage workers would be to eliminate the minimum wage entirely, maybe even reinstate compassionate indentured servitude. )

The minimum wage measure was attached to the pro-credit card company bankruptcy bill Republicans want passed. After losing their minimum wage measure, Democrats are now trying to tie the bankruptcy bill up by insisting that it include a clause that prohibits those who are sued for attacking abortion clinics from shielding their assets in bankruptcy. Republicans oppose that measure.

``Senators need to decide who they will stand with. There is not a single state where there is widespread support for turning this bill into the Firebomber Legal Protection Act,'' said Nancy Keenan, president of pro-choice Naral.

Speaking of Credit
And no wonder credit card companies are pushing to tighten bankruptcy laws. Americans are consuming credit card crack in record amounts.

“Buyers increased their borrowing on credit cards, auto loans and other types of consumer debt at an annual rate of 6.6 percent in January, the fastest pace in three months, the Federal Reserve reported Monday. That represented an increase of $11.5 billion in borrowing from December, double what many economists had expected. It came after an increase of $8.7 billion in borrowing in December, which was revised significantly from an estimate of a $3.1 billion increase in December. The 6.6 percent rate of increase in January compared with a 5 percent rise in December and was the fastest advance since consumer debt rose 8.2 percent in October. Demand for credit cards and other types of revolving credit rose at an annual rate of 8.1 percent in January, to $801 billion, after an 8.5 percent rise in December, Demand for nonrevolving credit, a category that includes auto loans, loans for mobile homes, boats and other miscellaneous categories like loans for vacations or schooling, rose 5.6 percent, to $1.32 trillion, after an increase of 2.8 percent in December. (AP)

Oh and BTW, none of those hefty numbers include mortgage or home equity loans. Those keep going up too.

What this means, to anyone paying attention, is that the growth we are seeing in the economy is not being driven by wages, but by credit. During the roaring 90s the 30-somethings came to consider the salad-days lifestyle they were living an entitlement. And, when it ended and their earnings dropped, they were loath to adjust their spending accordingly and instead maintained that standard of living with credit.

Okay, I’m a broken record on this issue. I know. I keep saying it will all end badly, and I know it has not happened, but it will, because it must. The “physics” of the marketplace demands that it end. The piper always must be paid, and with interest. And when the minimum monthly payment outstrips available income, credit card crack dealers will demand repayment.

If the Republicans get their bankruptcy rules passed, debtors will have no place to run, no place to hide from credit pushers. For the rest of their working lives Bubba the repo-man will be there on payday with his hand out.

America’s credit addicts will be forced to go cold turkey. And the wailing and gnashing of teeth will be something awful to behold.

And then I will say, “I told you so,” even as I wish it were not so.

I have go. I just picked up my mail and their four more pre-approved credit card offers I have to shred. The shedded offers makes a great mulch for my garden.

March 7, 2005

Sometimes one picture can cut to the chase faster and more effectively than a 1000 word rant from me. This weekend a picture popped into my head of what the lawns in front of our national and state capitols would like look like if the Supreme Court rules in favor of those who want to plant religous monuments on them. Since the law does not allow government to favor one religion over another, all religions - the big ones, the little ones, the screwball ones - would have a right to plant their markers next to the Ten Commandments. And they will. You can bet on it. Considering that possibility produced this image in my fevered mind. I wonder if this is what the Ten Commandment folks have in mind. Well, if not, I would advise them to take a long look at this picture. Because if they win they will see their own religious symbols crowded by a forest of "craven images." Justice, you see, comes in many forms.

That's all I have to say today. Praise the god of your choice.

March 6, 2005

G.W. Fixit

Mr. G.W. Fixit is a busy fella these days. Even though he is no where near done fixing the entire Middle East and is having no end of trouble getting started fixing Social Security, he has added another job to his “to do” list, fixing the tax system.

Okay, so I don’t like George. That’s no secret. Most of my readers like him even less. But we don’t want to act like those dog-pack Republicans did during the Clinton years. We need to give credit where credit is due and criticism where it is richly deserved. So, let’s try to objective today – at least on these three issues.

The Middle East
Sometimes it really does take a fool to rush in where wise men fear to tread, if for no other reason simply to destroy the status quo. I have no idea - though many suspicions -- just what the Bushies thought they were really going to accomplish by attacking Iraq.

We know now that the reasons given at the time were false. Did they know they were false as well? They claim to have been just as surprised as we were that there were no WMD in Iraq. But, that was the reason they said we had to attack. It was only later that they changed their motivation to “freeing the Iraqi people from a cruel dictator.”

Having said all that most Middle East experts agree that something quite remarkable is happening over there. There have been elections in Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq and today in Saudi Arabia, of all places. (Yes, I know women can’t vote in Saudi Arabia yet, but they couldn’t vote here either for over a century either, so we should not feel smug about that.)

Last week Egypt announced it would allow real opposition candidates to run for the first time. The people of Lebanon suddenly found the backbone to stand up against their Syrian occupiers. And yesterday Saudi Arabia publicly slapped Syrian leader Assad around and sent home with his tail between his legs.

Even the Israeli/Palestinian, the Hatfield/McCoy’s of the Middle East, are suddenly getting along. Israel is about to uproot rightwing nutcase settlers for the first time. Sure it’s just a small step, but even small steps in that part of the world are remarkable.

It would be very hard to argue that all this has nothing to do with George W. Bush’s policies in that part of the world. Whatever the Neo-con’s grand plan may have been when they attacked Iraq the effect it has had is similar to what we saw when Reagan rattled the SDI saber at the Soviet Union.

The Soviets looked at Reagan and came to the following conclusion: the man is mad as a hatter. He does not care about public opinion. He is not susceptible to logic. He knows what he knows and no one is going to tell him otherwise. But above all that, he is definitely crazy.

So, believing that despite world opinion, scientific proof or threats Reagan was going to build a missile shield over the US, thereby effectively disarming the Soviet Union, the Soviets proceeded to commit economic suicide trying to beat him to the punch. At the same time Reagan, refusing to believe the post-WWII division of Europe was an unchangeable fact, began encouraging eastern block nations to free themselves from Soviet domination. ("Tear down this wall.")

At the time we thought it was just more corney Reagan cowboy rhetoric. Then it happened. Today the corney rhetoric is "Democracy is on the march." And so it appears to be.

I am not giving Reagan or Bush credit for these successes because they were well planned and well executed. On the contrary. Reagan bumbled and fumbled like the rank foreign policy amateur he was. Remember the Iran/Contra mess? Remember when he sent McFarland to Tehran with a frigging birthday cake and a bible for Ayatollah Fruitcake?

Same with Bush. What a mess he made of post-war Iraq. What a mess he made of our alliances around the world.

But what both men did was to roll a hand grenade into these respective status quo cesspools and blow the lids off them. And that changed history. The Arabs, like the Russians before them, looked at Bush and decided he was crazy. And, after he proceeded to attack two Arab countries against domestic and world opinion, they decided he, like Reagan was going to do whatever he damn well pleased. So, today we see change on the move in a region where, for centuries, change was against the law.

If you are a student of history you will know that history is not in the business of producing either unambiguous results or happy endings. So don’t look for either anytime soon coming out of the Middle East. But, whatever is happening in the Middle East right now is a lot better than what was happening. And, like it or not, be it for good motives or evil motives, Bush is the reason.

Social Security Reform
On this one I know what they are up to, and so do they. Conservatives never liked Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid, all of which they view as communist tumors growing within the capitalist system. They would like to eliminate, privatize or turn over to charities, all public services. And that’s what Social Security reform is all about, the first step in that direction.

Notice also that, at the same time they are trying to take their first real bite out of Social Security, they are also chipping away at Medicaid. Bush wants to cut $60 billion out of the program, almost all coming out of money sent to states. Medicaid is a shared program. States pay half and the feds pay half. The $60 billion Bush wants to cut will come out of the federal share leaving states to figure out how to make it up, or cut services. Most states are already stretched and will have to cut medical services to children and the poor if Bush gets his way.

Social Security is like a trusty old 1951 Chevy I had growing up. It ran great but needed an occasional bit of tinkering. Its old straight-six engine would need new rings or seals. But, a hundred bucks or so and it would run like a dream for another few years. I am certain that old green four-door is still on the road.

Same goes for Social Security. It needs some new rings, tires and an oil change. That’s all. Raise the ceiling on top earners so that all their earned income is subject to Medicare tax, not just the first 90 grand. And, raise the retirement age as demographic data indicates it is appropriate. Tie the growth in Social Security checks to the CPI not wages. That’s it. Done.

As for Medicare and Medicaid there is only one solution and the sooner we adopt it we can be done with this problem for good: a national single-payer health insurance system. Period.

Tax Reform
I just paid my taxes so this issue is fresh in my tired mind. The current tax system is a mess. It’s Rube Goldberg contraption pasted together over the decades by small armies of accountants and lawyers, all working for people looking for ways not to pay taxes. Since most of us don’t have the money to pay for our own tax-lobbyists it means we were left holding the bag.

Look no further than the Alternative Minimum Tax, ATM. It was passed by congress years ago as way to catch rich folks who had found all kinds of legal ways to avoid paying any taxes at all. The trouble is, no sooner was the ATM on the books than their lawyers and accountants found ways to avoid paying the ATM as well. The inflation set in and suddenly millions of middle class families discovered their gross income put them squarely in the sights of the ATM tax. (Under ATM you figure what your tax would have been the way you would like to file and what it would be under the ATM formula, then you get to pay the HIGHER of the two. And the ATM is always higher, often much higher.)

Screwed again.

Bush says he sees that the current income tax system is hopelessly bollixed and wants to simplify it. Conservatives, including Fed Chief, Alan Greenspan, favor a consumption tax. Such a tax can take several forms, a national sales tax or a value added tax (VAT), like they use in Europe. Liberals favor a 12%-15% flat tax on gross, unadjusted earnings.

"Many economists believe that a consumption tax would be best from the perspective of promoting economic growth - particularly if one were designing a system from scratch - because a consumption tax is likely to favor saving and capital formation," Alan Greenspan

The trouble with the sales tax is that it hits the wrong people the hardest. No matter how rich a person is he or she can only consume so much stuff each year before they are full. The rest of their earnings get invested or saved and therefore untaxed. Working folk, on the other hand, generally spend every dime they make each year, largely on essentials, meaning they will be taxed on every dime they make.

A national sales tax also hits retired folks hard since they already paid taxes on a life’s worth of earnings, including the money they saved for retirement. Now they will be taxed again when they spend that money. Not fair.

The flat tax idea may work but only if it really is flat, no exceptions. That means no home mortgage deductions, no charitable deductions, no offshore accounts, nada. If you make a million bucks you pay $150,000 in taxes and shut up about it. But, should a Wal-Mart worker earning $15,000 a year have to pay $2250 a year in taxes? No, so you see, already in trying to be fair we are going to begin un-flattening the flat tax. The working poor would have to either be exempt or we would need to extend the current Earned Income Tax Credit to more people.

The value added tax, VAT, is a bureaucrat’s wet dream. Under VAT a product or service is taxed at each stage of development or manufacture. This would require the kind of bureaucracy only the French – or old Soviets -- could love. Can you imagine?

So, I have no easy solution to tax reform. I guess if I had to choose the one I thought would be the least unfair it would be a modified flat tax that makes allowances for the working poor and working families and no one else.

Whew. I'm taxed. Time to knock off. Have a nice weekend.

March 3, 2005

Jews Need Not Apply
Thanks to a vote by House Republicans yesterday your tax dollars may soon be going to organizations that discriminate. Yes, discrimination is going to be all the rage, if the Senate approves.

The House on Wednesday approved a job-training bill that would allow faith-based organizations receiving federal funds to consider a person's religious beliefs in making employment decisions. Under current law, religious groups that receive federal money for job-training programs must obey civil rights laws that prohibit discrimination in hiring or firing.

Every now and then we get a glimpse behind the façades the right puts up to hide what’s really afoot, and this was one of those times. The vote yesterday was pushed by the Christian right to fix a problem they had with Bush’s faith-based initiative. They were all for getting federal funds flowing to their church-sponsored outreach programs, but they did want to have to comply with the nation’s workplace anti-discrimination laws.

So, after two decades of complaining that government was hostile to religion (to which they mean Christianity) they wanted Congress to let them discriminate against people who do not share their beliefs -- and do it with taxpayer money. And, as the Christian right almost always does now, they got what they wanted out of this administration.

In a statement Wednesday supporting the bill, the White House said;

"Receipt of federal funds should not be conditioned on a faith-based organization's giving up a part of its religious identity and mission."

So what the fig does that mean? It means that a Christian group looking to hire people to run their taxpayer-funded job training program could turn away Jews, just because they are Jews.

And this business about a church charity not having to “give up its religious identity,” is particularly troubling. What if a taxpayer-funded charity is affiliated with an Islamic mosque whose “religious identity” includes the belief that non-Muslims are infidels so, of course, they can't hire "infidels?" Or how about a White Supremacist church that believes black folk are inferior, so they're out?

Or a fundamentalist Christian sect that teaches homosexuality is a sin, gays need not apply? No doctors or nurses need apply at a Christian Science charity either. Just how crazy does it have to get before we get the point? My guess is, pretty crazy.

I don’t want a dime of my tax money going to anyone who discriminates on race, religion or what a person does behind closed doors with their private parts.

Holy moly, what’s next? Charter schools in pricey neighborhoods turning away minorities because “they” do not reflect the “community identity?” It is not much of a stretch if the House measure on faith-based charities becomes law.

Understand this: the Christian right firmly believes America is a Christian nation, and any pussyfooting around that by them is just that, disengenuous pussyfooting. Yesterday they were at the Supreme Court arguing in favor of allowing monuments of the Ten Commandments on public property. Do you believe for one second the Christian right would have been there defending the right of Buddhist group to place a granite statue of Buddha on the lawn at the Texas State Capitol? Not a chance baby. Not a chance. In fact, you can bet that any non-Christian monument placed where the Ten Commandments are now would be vandalized beyond recognition within days – by Christian vandals – just as the Taliban blew up those giant Buddhist statues, and for the same reasons.

"The provision allowing consideration of religious beliefs is equivalent to turning the clock back on civil rights. Faith-based institutions should be required to adhere to basic civil rights laws. This provision is offensive, it is ugly, it is wrong, and beyond that, Mr. Speaker, I believe it is unconstitutional. It is important that we oppose discrimination at every turn.” Rep. James P. McGovern, D. Mass

At the very moment McGovern was uttering those words on the House floor, Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia was across the street lambasting lawyers arguing against the display of the Ten Commandments on at the Texas Capitol.

Scalia called the Ten Commandments "a symbol of the fact that government derives its authority from God," adding, "That seems to me an appropriate symbol to put on government grounds……(because) ……'Our laws come from God.'

So, you see, you have been lied to your whole life. You were taught that, in America, the elected representatives of the people create laws. Now we learn from Scalia that God actually wrote them. Is He still at it? If so then it would follow that God also wrote the law the House passed yesterday – the one that allows churches to discriminate.

And – here’s the kicker – if Scalia is right, then God has a twisted sense of humor. Because, in this law Jews and Muslims who pay taxes that fund, say a Christian charity, could be legally discriminated against by that charity. Man, that's a scream!

Seriously, this whole faith-based business is the slipperiest of slippery slopes. A Pandora’s box of interfaith trouble that should never have been pried open in the first place. Government and religion are each unstable chemicals that should never be allowed to mix. Because, when they do, it always creates an explosion, often literally.

If Congress insists on indulging the Christian right by approving federal funds to religious charities the LEAST it should do is insist those groups comply with the same anti-discrimination laws everyone else has to follow.

Yikes. What I just wrote amazes and shames me. At this point in our nation’s history we should not even be discussing something as shocking as government-sanctioned workplace discrimination.

But we are. And that’s amazing, tragic and so terribly dangerous.

Earth to Weird Al. Come in.
Alan Greenspan apparently woke up yesterday morning and discovered the federal deficit. After months of happy talk about the economy and more recently throwing his support behind Bush’s $2 trillion Social Security private accounts idea, Greenspan noticed a problem.

“Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve, warned on Wednesday that the federal budget deficits were "unsustainable," and he urged Congress to scrutinize both spending and taxes to solve the problem. "It's the principle that I think is involved here, namely that you cannot continuously introduce legislation which tends to expand the budget deficit," Mr. Greenspan said.’

Duh. No shit, Al! Just where did you think Bush was going to get all that money to fund his Social Security private accounts? He was going to borrow it, that’s where.

While Wierd Al is having epiphanies he might want to have one about the Bush tax cuts too. Making the Bush tax cuts permanent would be nothing short of fiscal suicide. Doing so would add at least another $1.8 trillion to the federal debt over 10 years. And that’s on top of a rapid escalation in the federal debt from $3.4 trillion to $4.3 trillion since Bush took office.

Is it just me or is it ironic that Congress has just passed tougher personal bankruptcy laws that benefit credit (crack) card companies? The new law will make much harder for working class Americans to get their debts discharged.

Republicans argued in favor of the changes waxed eloquently about how people need to be held responsible for profligate spending habits. These are the very same Republicans who continue to raise our nation’s debt ceiling to allow the Bush administration to borrow yet more money from America's biggest lender, China.

I hope that during the 2006 mid-term elections voters apply the same standard of personal responsibility to those Republican representatives and senators as they just imposed on the rest of us.

By Stephen Pizzo

Raconteur at Large

March 2, 2005

Here Come Da Judges

What’s the definition of an “activist judge?” Depends on which side of the decision you're on. Any judge that rules against a key conservative agenda item, like displaying the Ten Commandments in public buildings, is an activist judge to conservatives. Conversely, any judge that rules against a woman’s right to chose is an activist judge to liberals.

The judicial branch of government was established to protect us from extremists on any side. And, throughout our history, partisans on all sides have damned judges when they lost and praised their wisdom when they won.

And that’s just the way the Founders intended it. On occasion though both sides have tried to stack the courts in their favor. Franklin Roosevelt tried it and Republicans threw a fit and he was forced to back down.

Now George W. Bush is trying it.

Both Roosevelt and Bush had their own reasons for trying to protect pet programs from being killed by judges. Roosevelt was pushing a domestic agenda Republicans considered nothing short of Bolshevism and he knew that even after winning bitter fights in Congress, a bevy of Republican judges were just itching to rule them unconstitutional.

However well meaning Roosevelt’s aggressive social programs were he had no right trying to short circuit our constitutional check and balances. But Bush’s reasons for wanting to stack the federal bench with ultra-conservatives are even less admirable. At least Roosevelt was trying to lift the nation out of depression and grinding poverty. Bush just wants to make sure judges don’t get in the way of his Putin-like domestic agenda.

Do you think that’s a bit too strong? I mean, “Putin-like,” is that’s just cheap shot? Well, maybe a tiny bit too much, but not all that much too much.

I will admit that there are differences in how both men are getting their changes through. The Bush folks at least understand the basic rules of public relations. But the Russians have always been ham-handed and obvious when they try to pull a fast one and still are. So there is a difference. I give the Bush folks points for having the Bart Simpson, “Hey it was already broke when I got here,” routine down pat. Putin, on the other hand, just wreaks guilt.

Other than that the two men are peas in a pod; in the way they bristle beneath the glare of free media, how they view their nation’s judicial systems as tools, even weapons, and how they both believe their respective legislative bodies should be subservient to the executive branch.

Both Putin and Bush view constitutional checks and balances intrusions into their ruling prerogative. And, if both had their druthers, their respective legislatures would become largely ceremonial bodies whose main job would be to stand and clap wildly whenever the President enters the room.

September 11 was a gift of fate to both Putin and Bush. Ever since 9/11 both have tossed the cloak of "national security" over behavior and programs that would have been impossible before. Both men have used terrorism as a blunt object to beat Lady Liberty senseless.


For example, if I had told you in 1999 that within the next two years Congress would pass a law allowing the FBI to force your bespectacled librarian to tell them what books you read, you would have told me I was crazy. Today it's the law of the land.

For Putin 9/11 became a green light to recreate a KGB-style police state. Almost immediately the media, political opponents and businessmen who did not support Putin felt the cold, heavy hand of old-style Soviet repression tighten around them. Putin pushed it all through, just as Bush pushed the Patriot Act, as necessary for national security. There are terrorists out there, you know! Be good or the boogeyman will get you.

The only trouble is both Americans and Russians now we have two boogeymen to worry about; terrorists and their own governments.

Oh but look. Now I've stryed. I began this column talking about Bush stacking the courts with like minded judges. But then again, maybe not. It’s one of the ingredients in the same enchilada. No, that’s wrong. It’s more than just one of the ingredients. It’s THE most important ingredient. Because the courts are the last place ordinary Americans still have a chance of “beating City Hall.” It’s the final gauntlet a law or government action must run before being set in stone forever. “Fix” the courts and the administration will have nothing but open field from snap to touchdown.

Do I again exaggerate? Consider this. Last month the Bush folks moved one step closer to just that vision. The Republican-controlled Congress changed the nation’s class action laws consumers have used effectively to fight corporate abuses. The new law now requires that large class action cases be heard, not in state courts, but federal court. Large corporations had pushed hard for the change because they were losing too many shareholder fraud and product liability cases in state courts. Now companies hope such threats to their bottom line will have to pass muster before Bush-appointed federal judges.

Conservatives were disappointed yesterday when the US Supreme Court ruled it was cruel and unusual punishment to execute juveniles. While the civilized world appaulled the decision, for conservatives it was just one more reminder what an important opportunity Bush will soon have to fix that little problem too. (Judge Scalia, who many feel may be appointed Chief Justice, issued an angry rebuttal to the 5-4 majority opinion. Scalia believes it is wrong to kill a fertilized egg, but perfectly okay to kill a full term teenager.)

So the next time you hear the Bush folks whining about how Senate Dems are bottling up Bush’s federal court appointees, you might better understand why they are being so shrill over a handful of rightwing judges. These are, after all, lifetime appointments.

If Bush is successful in stacking the federal bench, from district courts to the Supreme Court, it’s game over. You lose.

March 1, 2005

Ownership What?

I’m going to give you an example of how this White House gets away with making pronouncements that are provably untrue. You know, like “Social Security is going broke,” and “Saddam had an active nuclear program,” or “Global warming has not been proven.”

I am going to tell you two things. And, while one will cancel out the other, one will prevail over the other:

1) George Bush wants to create an ownership society in which ordinary Americans own their home, stocks and bonds and retire with secure retirement savings.
2) During the last decade the income gap between average Americans and the wealthy widened. During the 1990’s average American’s wages grew by only 4% while the wealthy saw their income jump by 24%.

The second fact was part of a story today in my local paper written by one of the most meticulous journalists I know, Mary Fricker. (Mary was a co-author of Inside Job: The Looting of America’s Savings and Loans along with me and Paul Muolo.)

The study compares the bottom and top one-fifth of the county's estimated 100,000 working families, ranked by average income and adjusted for inflation. In Sonoma County, the average income for these groups in 1999 was $24,000 and $180,000, respectively. (Press Democrat)

What Mary Fricker reported in today’s Santa Rosa Press Democrat, is not unique to our semi-rural Northern California community. It is happening across America. As outsourcing strips America of its once good paying blue collar jobs the men and women who once were able to make a solid living off that work have been forced into low-paying service industry work or to take Wal-Marty type retail jobs.

Mary’s piece drove this point home by checking the same wage comparisons for the previous decade. She discovered that during the 1980s wages for both the wealthy and average Americans grew as almost precisely the same amount, about 24%.

Now, back to George Bush’s Ownership Society and why he gets away with it. Mary’s story, and those like it, will appear for a day then disappear from the news and the public’s mind. But George W. Bush will repeat his “ownership society,” nonsequtor continuously.

That’s how it works. That’s why a lie repeated often enough can trump truth. That’s how George Bush and Karl Rove succeed.

Here’s the problem. It’s simple math. Nothing complicated. If worker’s wages grew by only 4% during the 1990’s when inflation averaged 3% a year, what that means is that workers real wages— and spending power -- actually shrank by 27%.

This would appear to create a big problem for George because ownership generally requires that someone first be able to buy things, like a home. But, with real wages dropping by a quarter and home prices during the same time increasing by over 100%, just how are average workers going to be able to manage that?

The White House press corps could help here, if they only would. From now on every single time George Bush leans out from the podium with that “Listen up. I’m- about-to say-something-really-smart,” smirk on his face, and tells them how he wants to build an “ownership society,” reporters should demand that he reconcile that vision with falling real wages. How George? How do they buy things without money? (After all, not everyone is a member of the Bush clan.)

And, reporters should ask that question every single time Bush utters the words “Ownership Society.” And keep asking until the White House can provide numbers that don’t cause Excel to crash.

Then reporters need to also probe the President’s position on immigration. Bush wants to let more Mexican workers into the country to work in low-wage jobs. That will increase the number of workers vying for those jobs. Capitalism hardwires the value of everything to available supply, the more of something there is the less it’s worth. Therefore the more workers there are vying for available work, the lower wages will be driven.

Bush claims that these guest workers will only take jobs Americans don’t want. There is some truth in that, but it has little to do with the type of work, but rather the low wages and crappy working conditions. If the minimum wage were raised to a livable wage and indexed regionally to the cost of living, Americans would take many of those jobs.

But conservatives refuse to raise the minimum wage because their constituents want cheap labor, and they don’t care where it comes from. And, if they don’t get it here they will move operations to a country that will provide cheap, compliant workers.

But here again we have a problem. American consumers provide the bulk of the fuel for the world’s mercantile machine. That fuel supply has been shrinking. And it cannot be replace by the wealthy, even though they now have an excess of fuel. Even Bill Gates can only watch so many wide-screen TV’s, drive so many cars and take so many vacations before his shopping itch has been well scratched. It took a village to raise the kind of robust economy we had in the 1960s.

So, just who is going to pull the wagon for producers of consumer goods now? Who is going to realize George Bush’s grand vision of an Ownership Society? Ownership takes moola George, and you and your supporters are dead set against giving enough of it to the very people who would be owners, if they could. Am I missing something here?

I am not losing any sleep over whether George will not live to see his Ownership Society. But I am deeply concerned about where the widening wealth gap between top 1 percent of Americans and the rest of us is leading. Logic tells you it can lead only one place -- back to a country where a few realize all their dreams and more while everyone else struggles month to month just trying to own the bare essentials of life.

Maybe that’s what George means by Ownership. Anyway, that’s what we’re going to get unless the wage gap starts to close, and fast.

By Stephen Pizzo

Raconteur at Large

Feb 28, 2005

Change Is In The Air

I am beginning to think that history will look back on the first decade of the new millennium as a tipping point. A time when ordinary people around the world suddenly got fed up with their institutions and chucked them.

We see that going on now in the Middle East. Regardless of how you may feel about George W. Bush, he has clearly shaken up the ruling status quo in the Middle East. Egypt announced last week that it will now allow contested elections for the first time. The Palestinians democratically chucked Arafatism and are finally doing what needs to be done to get a peace deal and their own homeland. Even sulky Syria seems to be feeling the pressure. Over the weekend they turned over 30 Iraqi Baath Party members, including Saddam’s half-bro. Since Syria is also run by the Baath “pan-Arab” party, that’s pretty remarkable.

Then this morning we awake to discover that opposition protesters in Lebanon had forced the resignation of their pro-Syrian Prime Minister. Clearly something important is stirring in that part of the world.

I feel it here at home too, especially on the left. Since the 1930s two institutions; the Democrat Party and labor have led the left. The GOP was for the wealthy and the Democrat Party for “the little guy.” So an alliance between labor and Democrats was a natural match.

And it was a good match too. A half-century of improving wages, benefits and working conditions forced upon companies by this alliance created the strongest, most productive and most affluent working class in the world. And, it exposed the lie that Communism was the only way to achieve a fair and equitable distribution of wealth and public welfare.

But then something went wrong. Labor morphed into Big Labor. And as it did its leadership, which once met at the bargaining table with the grime from the work floor still fresh under their fingernails, became indistinguishable from those they were negotiating with. And, as the money from union dues grew into the tens and then hundreds of millions of dollars, union leaders diverted more and more of it into activities that had little or nothing to do with organizing.

Then the sellouts began. First Big Labor began making deals with organized crime. The first thing the Mob did was to get rid of union democracy. Union elections were rigged and its membership cowed into silence.

I saw this up close and personal. I once belonged to the Boiler Makers Union. I only went to one union meeting. The smoky union hall was full of working guys sitting on folding chairs. On the stage sat a big fat guy in a suit, the local’s president. Two big-necked guys stood at either end of the stage facing the members.

During the meeting a member raised his hand and objected to an expense item being voted on. It was several thousand dollars supposedly for new carpet and furniture for the union president’s office. Why, he asked do they have to spend their dues on something like when the president’s office was already carpeted and furnished? Wouldn’t it be better, he asked, to use that money to recruit new members?

The president mumbled something about how his office had to look nice because he conducted union business in it. But the member who raised the objection was unconvinced and insisted that the matter be tabled for further discussion.

Clearly annoyed, the president glanced to his left and addressed the thug at that end of the stage.

“Will you fellas take the brother outside and explain this matter to him so we can get on with business?”

The”brother” was escorted outside, feet barely touching the floor, and the vote proceeded. It was unanimous.

That would have been around 1965 and I suspect that event was repeated thousands of times in union halls across America, as labor officials became farmers and members their personal cows.

By the late 1980s the FBI had chased most organized crime out of the larger unions – although it took years of federal receivership to loosen their grip on the lucrative Teamsters pension fund.

But by then union officials had found new friends. (No, not their members, silly.) What they discovered is they had a lot more in common with the suits in management than they did with their working class members. They liked the same comforts. They appreciated the “burdens” of leadership. They road in limos, flew first class, or in their own planes. They related.

Around the same time union officials made another discovery. Actual labor organizing was hard, dirty work. It forced them out of their comfortable executive offices and into direct contact with working class guys and gals. Sometimes they even had to go onto factory floors, which was hell on wingtips.

If they could just figure out a way to show their members results without having to actually DO anything, well, that would be just the ticket. That’s when Big Labor met Big Politics. And, again, they found they had something in common. Both Big Labor and Big Politics both loved Big Money.

So, just as the FBI was stopping the flow of member’s dues to Mob coffers, union officials begun diverting it to politicians. What about organizing? Who needs organizing when you can buy politicians who can pass laws that benefit workers? Right?

Apparently not. In the 1950s, the height of union organizing prowess, 34% of America’s workers were unionized. Today it’s down to 12%, and falling faster than ever.

But that may be about to change. Big Labor officials are beginning to feel heat from below. Even the well-fed, well-housed, well-insured, well-driven, well-flown, well-officed AFL/CIO boss, John Sweeney, is getting worried. Last week he indicated he might finally agree to let locals have back a portion of the $124 million in dues they pay each year to use for local organizing efforts.

Of course Sweeney did not decide to give back money from what he sees has his personal checking account because he became a born-again union man. No, it was pressure form below, places like the Service Employees International Union which gave him an ultimatum, “cough up the money John or we will leave the family and form a new union.”

American workers have not been treated this badly since the 1920’s. Robber-baron corporations, like Wal-Mart, are exploiting workers here and around the world with impunity. They no longer fear workers because they no longer fear unions. And they don’t fear unions because they co-opted their leadership years ago.

Worker's wages, in real terms, have dropped like a rock. Working families now make so little that growing numbers of them now hover around the poverty line. The combined incomes of two Wal-Mart employees cannot provide the standard of living a plumber enjoyed in the 1960s. Not even close. Workers have no bargaining power, and they can’t quit because there are no other jobs. They are stuck. They can’t get ahead on what the make. It boarders on indentured servitude. How far are we from the old days when workers were so tied to their exploitive employers that they ended up owing them money at the end of every month?

So the conditions are ripe for a rebirth of the labor movement. The only question is can existing union institutions handle the job or do they need to be replaced by new, grassroots, worker-run unions? The answer depends on whether or not existing unions will tolerate truly democratic elections. If they can then grassroots members have a shot at unseating the tired, corrupt and clueless leadership who offer nothing but a mouthful of “give me,” and a handful for nothing.

The same goes for the Democrat Party.

Memo to Howard Dean: You have less than two years to put the roots back into grassroots. I can only speak for myself, but I want new faces at the top. I want faces I have never seen mugging on CNN. I want people to run for office who, until yesterday, were one of us. Yes, that’s right, I want inexperienced people, because in Washington “experience,” too often means corrupted rather than educated. I don’t want more people representing me who have “learned the ropes” in that way. Instead I want Mr. Smith, Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Smith’s hairdresser. I want people representing me who still drop their jaws in shock and anger when someone offers them a smarmy deal. Call me silly, but I want naïve, idealistic, honest folks representing me from now on.

So, since the stars seem to be in position and ready to facilitate massive institutional changes around the world, let’s hope that it extends to Big Labor and Big DNC. Both have been skating for decades, living off the goodwill of members only to fail them. No, they did worse than just fail them. They have sold them down the river of self-interest. In order to build their own fortunes, reputations and power, they sold their members into lives of low wages, low expectations, no healthcare and, as if that were not enough, they are letting the bastards send the remaining good-paying jobs overseas.

DNC… Big Labor…. both of you should be ashamed – or maybe just gone.

It's up to you guys. Pick one.


For more on this subject see:
Labor Pains: Eight Simple Rules
by Jonathan Tasini
In Today's TomPaine.com

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