Puget Sound Liberals Weekly Newsletter #155
Enhancing Freedom, Opportunity and Cooperation in
Through informing and networking Liberals and Liberal
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Our Website Our Editor To Unsubscribe Table of
Contents * Featured
Articles Communication with Our Members Calendars of Events Opportunities and Petitions Commentaries from Our Members Valerie
Tarico/Tony Norton: Origins of Xmas Stories Rich Austin: Focusing Our Democratic Platform Liberals and Democrats Links to the Beef Racist Conservatives Just Don’t Get It State and Local Links to the Beef Our Speculation Fueled the Housing & Credit
Bubbles? Washington State’s Leadership Vacuum Washington State Democrats Should Plan for 2009 Nation and World Links to the Beef Lessons from Bernard Madoff’s Scam Spam Is Here, There, Everywhere Lee Iacocca: Where Have All the Leaders Gone? The Falling Price of Oil: A Mixed Blessing Our Liberal Spirit Our
Political Priorities ·
Fair Clean
Elections and Open Government ·
Fair Taxes
and Competent Spending ·
Investment
for Productivity ·
Quality
Health, Education, Jobs, Income ·
Environmental
Protection and Energy Independence ·
Security and
Equal Rights ·
Justice and
Peace Everywhere ·
International
Cooperation and Leadership Conservatives oppose all of these Let’s
End Our National Nightmare
Let’s Restore
Our American Dream More on Conservative opposition to our
American Dream Washington State’s 5 Major Needs ·
Federal
Funding for Health and Education · Substitute a Progressive Income Tax · Replacing
Republican Legislators Quote of the Week Why did God make
time? So everything wouldn’t happen
at once. Why did he make the last
moment? So things would get done.
Communication with Our Members
Targeting Business Abuses
During 2007, our Puget Sound
Liberals championed public campaign
financing. During 2008, we
championed lowering taxes for 90% of our
taxpayers through requiring our high income and wealthy people to pay their
fair share of taxes. We championed
doing this through substituting a progressive income tax for some of our
regressive sales, excise and property taxes.
We continue to champion these causes.
Our emphasis in 2009 will be upon identifying and
targeting business abuses. We hope that others will show up to provide
the leadership on this issue that Washington State needs.
Calendar of Events
Saturday,
January 10 at 6:30 PM at Cary Bogner’s home (1120
24th Ave E, Seattle) – inSPIre Potluck and Discussion of Iraqi
refugee crisis.
Friday,
January 16 at 7 PM at Traditions Café and World Folk (300 – 5th
Avenue, Olympia) – UN
Convention for the Elimination of all Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) Educational Forum ‘Why You Should Care About “The Women’s Treaty”’, sponsored by Thurston County National
Organization for Women, featuring Leanne Smith and Heidi Evans of Amnesty International.
Monday, January 19 at St. John’s Episcopal Church (114
= 20th Avenue SE, Olympia) at 8:45 AM – People’s Summit for Economic Justice and at 11:30 AM – March on the Capitol, sponsored by our Statewide
Poverty Action Network.
Opportunities
and Petitions
Opportunities
Useful Websites: contacts, maps, community organizing
tools, and more.
Access
to jillions of political cartoons.
Download Sightline Institute’s climate policy primer
‘Cap and Trade 101’. About
Sightline.
International version of ‘Stand by Me’ (video).
Learn more
about the Obama-Biden policy agenda and share your ideas.:
For updates
from Obama-Biden Transition Project, including video of Obama’s weekly address.
For news about
Obama-Biden’s preparations to take office.
For news about Barack Obama’s inauguration and ways to
participate from home.
Obtain Progressive States Networks resources for improving many state government services.
Petitions and Donations
Tell our
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee your ideas for change.
Commentaries
From Our Members
Rich Austin: Focusing Our Democratic Platform
For rank and file
Democrats to be taken seriously we must practice some discipline and
restraint. A Platform that tries to be all things to all people all at
once is a recipe for disaster. No lawmaker can adhere to every section of
our bloated State Platform, or the 50 – 60 resolutions that were passed
by the WSDCC in the past couple of years.
Instead, we need
to channel our power by simplifying and compacting the Platform.
Five – ten planks backed up by one resolution each would produce a very
short, very poignant document. The “Magna Carta”s we’ve passed at
previous State Conventions, after
arguing about dangling participles, gerunds, or using a semi-colon instead of a
comma, wound up being ignored. In addition, Convention Delegates
often grow weary of haggling over every word and/or issue, and after perhaps a
couple of hours of debate someone makes a motion to accept the remainder of the
yet-to-be debated portion of the Platform. The motion passes and
delegates pack up and go home, not knowing what they’ve passed or why.
The restrained
approach that is being suggested would have to begin at the Precinct Caucus and
County Central Committee/LD levels. Discussions on the wisdom of an
abbreviated Platform and its objectives would need to take place, and
thereafter delegates elected by the Counties and LD’s to the State
Convention could be guided by whatever action took place at the
County/LD meetings.
The 5 – 10 issues
addressed in a platform should be those that the public deem to be the most
important.
A “how to” about
writing and submitting resolutions can be found by going to the Washington
State Democrats website. Click on “About Us”, then click “Platform, Bylaws and
Resolutions”, and finally click “Rules for Resolutions”.
Although the
“Rules” are specific to the WSDCC, the procedure generally applies to the 88
jurisdictions in our state (39 counties, 49 legislative districts).
Because no
grassroots precinct caucuses will occur until 2010, for the time being
resolutions will need to be submitted at County
Central Committee Meetings, or
Legislative District Meetings and thereafter discussed and put to a vote
by either of those bodies. If a
resolution is intended to be forwarded to the WSDCC for action, the
“Rules” referenced above provide
information on how to do that.
It does no good
to pass resolution on top of resolution,
all of which are intended to
cover every perceived ill known to humankind..
Quantity is not an ally of getting things done.
We need to
practice some discipline and restraint. We need to set a limited number
of priorities. Once justice is achieved on any or all of our priorities,
we can add new ones.
We’ve come to
expect too little of the “government of the people, by the people, and for the
people”. We continue to allow lawmakers to decide issues and set
parameters of debate. By doing so we remain trapped in their definitions
of what is important. Furthermore, when we dilute our strength by trying to be
all things to all people all at once we invite lawmakers to ignore us.
We need to
recognize we are the government. We need to stop being timid. We
need to establish our priorities and thereafter call on lawmakers to enact
them.
We have certain
unalienable rights. There is also a “Second Bill of Rights” as articulated by
President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Now
let’s work hard and smart to achieve
them!
Liberals
and Democrats
Our Political Recess
While
many of us are on vacation, President Bush is continuing his war on our
environment. Making many executive
orders to benefit his crony companies at the expense of our environment. And our consumers. And our workers. And our general public. Hopefully, most of these orders can be
reversed before too much damage is done.
The
transition team and Democratic congressional leaders are continuing to
work. An economic stimulus recovery
package will be introduced in early January.
Hopefully it will be passed and ready for signing by Barack Obama upon
taking office. Other executive actions
and legislation are also being considered and formulated. Under the pressure of our constitutional,
foreign policy, economic and other domestic messes, 2009 will begin with a
series of political activities.
Hopefully,
we political junkies have enjoyed a respite during the holidays. We will soon have as much politics as we had
during 2008. This time it will be about
more than electing good candidates. It
will be about passing good legislation.
It will be about Reclaiming our American Dream.
If
you were involved politically in 2008, your involvement is needed even more
during 2009. To change America. To change our politics. To change our Democratic Party. To change ourselves.
Luckily,
social and political change is not a lonely process. We have countless colleagues all over the
world. We often cannot identify specific
changes that have resulted from our actions.
But we can identify changes that have resulted from the movements of
which we are a part. Our participation
is not only motivated by doing good. It
is also motivated by having great experiences.
The experiences of creating new mindsets and practices amidst struggle
with our old ones. It’s a shame and a
personal loss to sit out a revolution.
Best Books Recommended for Liberals in 2008
Roosevelt’s Liberal Revolution
Arthur M. "Schlesinger, Jr., 1957, The Crisis of the Old
Order: 1919-33, The Age of Roosevelt, Vol. I
Arthur M. "Schlesinger, Jr., 1958, The Coming of the New
Deal: 1933-35, The Age of Roosevelt, Vol. II
Arthur M. "Schlesinger, Jr., 1960, The Politics of Upheaval:
1935-36, The Age of Roosevelt, Vol. III
Harvard
Sitkoff (ed), 1985, Fifty Years Later,
The New Deal Evaluated
Putting People First
John
Kenneth Galbraith, 1958, The Affluent
Society
John
Kenneth Galbraith, 1967, The New
Industrial State
John Kenneth Galbraith, 1973, Economics and the Public Purpose
E. F. Schumacher, 1973, Small Is Beautiful, Economics as if People
Mattered
Robert
N. Bellah, Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler and Steven M.
Tipton, 1985, Habits
Herman
E. Daly and John B. Cobb, Jr., 1989, For
the Common Good, Redirecting the Economy Toward Community, the Environment and
a Sustainable Future
Frances
Moore Lappe, 1989, Rediscovering
America’s Values, A Provocative Dialogue for Exploring Our Fundamental Beliefs
and How They Offer Hope for America’s Future
Market Fundamentalism
Robert Kuttner, 1996, Everything for Sale, The Virtues and Limits
of Markets
Daniel Altman, 2004, Neoconomy, George Bush’s Revolutionary Gamble with
America’s Future
Jacob S. Hacker, 2006, The Great Risk Shift, The Assault on American Jobs, Families, Health
Care, and Retirement and How you can Fight back
Naomi
Klein, 2007, The Shock Doctrine, The Rise
of Disaster Capitalism
Corporate Abuse
Thom
Hartman, 2002, Unequal Protection, The
Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights
Marjorie
Kelly, 2001, The Divine Right of Capital,
Dethroning the Corporate Aristocracy
Charles
Derber, 2004, Regime Change Begins at
Home, Freeing America from Corporate Rule
Robert Kennedy, Jr., 2004, Crimes against Nature, How George W. Bush
and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy
Senator Byron Dorgan,
2006, Take This Job and Ship It, How
Corporate Greed and Brain-Dead Politics Are Selling Out America
J.
Peter Scoblic, 2008, US vs. Them, How a
Half Century of Conservatism Has Undermined America’s Security
Housing and Credit Bubbles and Collapse
John
Kenneth Galbraith, 1954, The Great Crash
1929
Joseph
E. Stiglitz, 2002, Globalism and Its
Discontents*
Joseph
Stiglitz, 2003, The Roaring Nineties, A
New History of the World’s Most Prosperous Decade*
Ravi
Batra, 2005, Greenspan’s Fraud, How Two
Decades of His Policies Have Undermined the Global Economy
Robert
J. Shiller, 2005, Irrational Exuberance
Richard
Bitner, 2008, Confessions of a Subprime
Lender, An Insider’s Tale of Greed, Fraud and Ignorance.
William A. Fleckenstein, 2008, Greenspan’s Bubbles, The Age of Ignorance at
the Federal Reserve
Charles
R. Morris, 2008, The Trillion Dollar
Meltdown, Easy Money, High Rollers, and the Great Credit Crash
Paul
Muolo and Mathew Padilla, 2008, Chain of
Blame, How Wall Street Caused the Mortgage and Credit Crisis
Kevin Phillips, 2008, Bad Money, Reckless Finance, Failed Politics
and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism.
George
Soros, 2008, The New Paradigm for Financial
Markets, The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What It Means
Peak Oil
Richard Heinberg, 2003, The Party’s Over, Oil, War and the Fate of
Industrial Societies
James
Howard Kunstler, 2005, The Long
Emergency, Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging
Catastrophes of the Twenty First Century
Paul
Roberts, 2005, The End of Oil, On the
Edge of a Perilous New World
Our American Empire
Paul
Kennedy, 1887, The Rise and Fall of the
Great Powers
Chalmers
Johnson, 2000, Blowback, The Costs and Consequences
of American Empire
Chalmers Johnson, 2004, The Sorrow of Empire. Militarism, Secrecy and the End of the Republic
Andrew
J. Bacevich, 2008, The Limits of Power, The
End of American Exceptionalism
Community Organizing
Saul
Alinsky, 1946, Reveille for Radicals.
Saul
Alinsky, 1972, Rules for Radicals.
Stanley
Horwitt, 1992, Let Them Call Me Rebel,
Saul Alinsky: His Life and Legacy
Institute of Cultural Development, 1989, Approaches that Work
Laura Spencer, 1989, Winning Through Participation
R.
Brian Stanfield, 1900, The Courage to
Lead
R.
Brian Stanfield, 2002, The Workshop
Book: From Individual Creativity to Group Action
Paul Rogat Loeb, 1999, Soul of a Citizen, Living with Conviction in
a Cynical Time
Paul
Rogat Loeb (ed.), 2004, The Impossible
Will Take a Little While, A Citizen’s Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear
Social Entrepreneurs
Greg
Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, 2006, Three
Cups of Tea, One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace… One School at a Time
David
Bornstein, 2004, How to Change the World,
Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas
Muhammad Yunus, 1999, Banker to the Poor, Micro-Lending and the
Battle Against World Poverty
Liberal Political Strategy
Don Hazen and Lakshmi
Chaudhry, 2005, Start Making Sense,
Turning the Lessons of Election 2004 into Winning Progressive Politics
Gary
Hart, 2006, The Courage of Our
Convictions, A Manifesto for Democrats
Bill Scher, 2006, Wait! Don’t Move to Canada! A Stay-and-Fight Strategy to Win Back America
Matthew Kerbel (ed.), 2006, Get This Party Started, How Progressives Can
Fight Back and Win
James
Carville and Paul Begala, 2006, Take It
Back, Our Party, Our Country, Our Future)
Paul Waldman, 2006, Being Right Is Not Enough, What Progressives Must Learn from
Conservative Success
Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas
Zuniga, 2006, Crashing the Gate,
Netroots, Grassroots and the Rise of People-Centered Politics
Rahm Emanuel and Bruce Reed, 2006, The Plan, Big Ideas for America
Glenn Hurowitz, 2007, Fear and Courage in the Democratic Party
Laura
Flanders, 2007, Blue Grit, True Democrats
Take Back Politics from the Politicians
Glenn Greenwald, 2008, Great American Hypocrites, Toppling the Big
Myths of Republican Politics
Eric Alderman, 2008, Why We’re Liberals, A Political Handbook for Post-Bush America
Barack Obama
Barack
Obama, 1995, Dreams from My Father, A
Story of Race and Inheritance
Barack
Obama, 2006, The Audacity of Hope,
Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream
Lisa
Rogak (ed.), 2007, Barack Obama in his
Own Words, the Candidate Speaks on Everything from Abortion to the Middle East
Robert Kuttner, 2008, Obama’s Challenge, America’s Economic Crisis
and the Power of a Transformative Presidency
John R. Talbott, 2008, Obamanomics, How Bottom-Up Economic Prosperity Will replace Trickle-Down Economics
(Economics in the Obama Presidency)
Barack
Obama, 2008, Change We Can Believe in, Barack Obama’s Plan to Renew America’s
Promise
Progressive Tax Reform
Alan
Durning and Yoram Bauman, 1998, Tax Shift
William H. Gates Sr. and Chuck Collins, 2002, Wealth and Commonwealth, Why America Should
Tax Accumulated Fortunes
Racist
Conservatives Just Don’t Get It
Racism
is wrong. Racial prejudice is
wrong. Racial discrimination is
wrong. Racial violence is wrong. Racist statements cannot be dismissed as
humorous. Racism is not humorous. Humor cannot be used to justify racism. Conservatives cannot legitimately deny that
they are racist, by dismissing their racist comments as humorous. More
generally, intentionally harming people is not humorous. Even when harming people is justified, as may
be necessary in law enforcement. Hate
and hateful actions are not humorous.
Our most prominent racists may be Rush Limbaugh, Pat Buchanan and Lou Dobbs.
Conservatives
often berate what they call ‘political correctness’. As though we lose some freedom of speech if
we can’t make racial jokes. But we have
plenty of freedom of speech without making racial jokes. And most racial and ethnic jokes are really
about dumbness. We can tell funny dumb
jokes without labeling the dumb person racially or ethnically. Racial and ethnic jokes are simply disguised
hate messages. So are most jokes about
men and women, homosexuals, disabled people and about other objects of
prejudice and discrimination. If in
doubt about a joke, don’t tell it. And
don’t listen approvingly to questionable jokes.
As
Liberals, we are committed to ending prejudice and discrimination against
people based upon who they are instead of what they do. We want all people to have the same freedoms
and opportunities, regardless of who they are.
We want the only restrictions upon anyone’s freedom and opportunities to
based upon protecting others from their harmful actions.
Here’s the Beef
Transportation
Secretary Ray LaHood is a rare Republican who supports public investment.
Barack
Obama’s inaugural train ride indicates support for improving our train
infrastructure.
Barack
Obama’s economic recovery plans can benefit from avoiding President Roosevelt’s
mistakes.
Our
Center for Constitutional Rights has 100 day plan for restoring our constitution.
Senator Bernie
Sanders’ proposals for our 2009 congress.
State
and Local
What about Main Street Fraud?
Like
previous speculative bubbles, our speculative housing and credit bubble was
driven by infectious greed. Some
financial companies and employees gained financially by creating and marketing
fraudulent mortgages and mystery securities based upon them. Their competitors joined in for financial
gain. Or simply to keep their jobs.
Our
speculative housing and credit bubble was fueled by both Main Street and Wall
Street. Fraudulent loan applications
were first created by independent contractors and approved by bank loan
officers with the collusion of fraudulent appraisals by appraisers, all Main
Streeters. Wall Street financial
companies then repackaged and sold the fraudulent mortgages as mystery
securities.
Wall
Street financial companies and workers were paid huge amounts of money. Less noticed is that a large number of
smaller Main Street companies and workers also were paid well for their
fraudulent activity. Justice would
include trials and paybacks of the money obtained fraudulently by both Wall
Streeters and Main Streeters. But the
fraudulent practices were too widespread.
Instead, our federal money is spending tax money to bail out the Wall
Streeters, justified that they are too large to fail. That their failure would ruin our credit
system.
While
the Wall Street companies and workers are suffering, the Main Street companies and
workers are suffering much less. They
are just returning to normal. Their
miscreants are not being identified and many will simply continue in a smaller
market. None of our Main Street loan
applicators, real estate agents, bank loan officers or appraisers have
confessed to fraud. Nor have their
associations. Confession is seldom the
American Way.
Our Speculation
Fueled the Housing & Credit Bubbles
To
see a speculator, most of us simply need to look in the mirror. Many of us have speculated, simply through
seeking the largest returns on our savings.
This was the primary criteria by which we bought stocks and mutual funds
and invested our 401(k) money. We
expected our pension funds to maximally increase. These used our money to speculate in mystery
securities, derivatives and hedge funds.
The bubble helped us increase our net worth, until its collapse took
much of our ill gotten gains away.
We
also speculated in buying our houses. We
bought with the expectation that they would increase in value. Our houses gained value, which many of us
borrowed against to spend on consumption or further speculation. Now our houses are losing that unearned
increased value. Suppose instead, we had
invested in safe government bonds. We
would have obtained smaller returns, but wouldn’t have lost anything from the
collapse of our bubbles.
Even
better, suppose that our jobs had paid us a fair proportion of our
productivity. Suppose that our employers
had continued their defined benefit pensions, instead of switching to defined
contribution pensions. With this switch
the funds were controlled by us instead of our employers, so we instead of them
were the ones tempted to speculate. Now
many companies are eliminating their pension benefits altogether.
Suppose
instead of employer based pension funds, our employers paid us more money,
which we could use to buy portable Social Security add-ons. Hopefully, the changes we need will include
obtaining higher wages, saving more money, and putting the money into secure
non-speculative savings and pensions.
Hopefully, we will quit funding jillions of financial workers who engage
in non-productive speculative activities.
Financial workers who transfer money from here to there without
producing anything useful. Hopefully our
unemployed financial workers will find other jobs which contribute to the
productivity of our economy, instead of just ripping off the fruits of that
productivity.
Washington State’s Leadership Vacuum
The
major obstacle to our American Dream is business influence on our political
system. This malign influence occurs at our state level as well as our national
level. Businesses are ruining our
environment. Through wasting our resources
and causing pollution of our land, water and air. They are producing and marketing dangerous
products. They are endangering our
workers. They are interfering with our
family life. They are spamming us, our
children and our seniors. They are
preventing our government from protecting us and assisting us with needed
social services. We are mostly aware to
some extent of these nefarious business practices. Of the excessive influence that business is
having upon our politics, our government and our lives.
But
Washington has few leaders who address these issues. Examine the websites of our congress members,
our governor, and our state legislators.
Our
72 member Congressional Caucus includes only one member from Washington: Jim
McDermott. Our commercial media note
report some negative business influences, but neglect many others. Even our Liberal bloggers give little
attention to business abuses. None
identify or address the general pattern of these negative business
influences.
Our Washington State
Democratic Party pays some attention to business abuses; but not much. Stating
what it stands for, it only states “We
believe that Corporations are important to our economy and standard of living,
but that government is created by, of and for the people, not corporations.”
In
its platform, it adds: “We oppose:
·
The Supreme Court precedent that
corporations are people;
·
Corporations exerting undue influence on
our government.
We call for:
·
Full enforcement of antitrust laws;
·
International trade based on fair trade
including living wages and environmental protection;
·
Increasing export of manufactured goods
and decreasing export of raw resource material;
·
Transparency in corporate accounting;
·
Strengthening and enforcement of laws
against corporate crime, with penalties to include incarceration of executives
and revocation of corporate charters.”
We need leaders who will
detail the business abuses that are occurring within Washington State: to our
environment, our workers, our consumers and our family members. We need leaders who will suggest specific
legislative and other remedies. Until we
recognize and struggle against these abuses, we will continue to be abused.
During 2007, our Puget Sound
Liberals championed public campaign financing.
During 2008, we championed lowering taxes for 90% of our taxpayers
through requiring our high income and wealthy people to pay their fair share of
taxes. We championed doing this through
substituting a progressive income tax for some of our regressive sales, excise
and property taxes. A progressive tax
which requires high income and wealthy people to pay for the maintenance and
enhancement of our infrastructure which made the wealth possible. We continue to champion these causes. Our
emphasis in 2009 will be upon identifying and targeting business abuses. We hope that others will show up to provide
the leadership that Washington State needs.
Washington State
Democrats Should Plan for 2009
With the beginning of a new
year, our state and legislative district Democratic organizations should review
the successes and failures of this past year and create plans for this
year. Our review should note that we produced
majority votes for Barack Obama and Governor Christine Gregoire. We failed to replace any Republican Congress
members. We failed to replace most
incumbent Republican state executives.
We had a net loss of Democratic state legislators. In spite of Barack Obama’s popularity, we
failed to enable his coattails.
Our electoral failures
resulted from failing to identify half of our likely Democratic voters and
persuade them to vote for our Democratic candidates. We barely communicated with identified likely
Democratic voters. What communication we
do have is top down. Strategic decisions
are announced from on high, with little discussion by or input from most of our
Democrats. Nor have we developed a
stable grass roots fund raising system, as Barack Obama has done.
Our new politics should begin
with correcting these failures. Before
or immediately after selecting new legislative district and state Democratic
leaders, we should involve our grassroots members in creating our 2009
plans. Participatory planning is the key
to participation in implementing a plan.
Let’s end 2009 with many more likely Democrats identified, with regular training
and two-way communication with them, with many more funds raised, and with a
focus upon assisting our Democratic candidates to win. Let’s create closer relations between our
candidates and office holders and our voters.
Here’s
the Beef
Unemployment
payments barely cover housing costs.
Need lower housing costs.
Washington
and Oregon initiate manufacturer-financed hi-tech recycling programs.
Department
of Ecology is right to order repairs to dams which may fail.
Nation
and World
Stopping Corporate Abuse
Our
book list contains many books
which document the corporate abuse.
Including the increasing power of corporations following the civil war
and the struggle to restrain their abuses during the progressive era. Corporate power increased again following
World War I and was restrained during the New Deal of the 1930s. Corporate power has again increased since the
1980s to the highest levels yet.
Corporations now dominate our government, political parties, commercial
media, jobs, income and consumption.
America
is presently subject to crony capitalism, in which our ruling political regime
is oriented to using our government and economy to reward its capitalist
cronies at the expense of our democracy and free enterprise.
·
Tax and Financial Abuse: Tax laws have been changed to benefit corporations
and wealthy people. Tax loopholes allow
most corporations to pay low tax rates or none at all. The number of tax fraud
inspectors is reduced. Tax fraud is
undetected. Or if detected, is
ignored. Interest rate limits have been
eliminated. Banks and card companies are
able to solicit customers and then impose abusive fees. Bankruptcy has been rendered more
difficult. And we have recently
understood the extent to which banks and financial companies were able to
create fraudulent and inappropriate loans, disguise them in mystery securities
and deceptively sell them.
·
Corporate Representatives in Government: Corporate representatives have been writing our
legislation to the advantage of their corporations. They have been appointed to government
positions in which they dismantle and fail to enforce regulations. Budgets for regulatory inspectors have been
cut. Disregarding science, regulations
have been weakened. Court cases against
corporate abusers have been settled favorably to the abusers. Every effort has been made to deceive the
public. Whistleblowers are punished and
banished.
·
Government Profit Centers: Our government has been regarded as a series of profit
centers. Private contracts have made
fortunes with no-bid contracts with no accountability for spending or
results. In Iraq. The Katrina cleanup. And elsewhere.
·
Military-Business: Ever since the beginning of the Cold War, military businesses have
worked closely with our military and government officials to profitably provide
often unnecessary military equipment.
·
Energy Abuse:
Petroleum companies working in secret with our Bush administration, wrote
legislation which gives them enormous profits.
This includes large subsidies, depletion and other tax breaks, freedom
from regulation, access to public lands and more. Automobile efficiency legislation has been stalled. Subsidies for non-carbon based energies have
been allowed to lapse. States have been
refused the right to control pollution. Even our recent wars are the result of
military industrial, energy and other corporate influences.
·
Environmental Abuse: Every attempt has been made to nullify environmental
regulations. Corporations have been
given rights to exploit our environment and public lands. Few public hearings are held. Opinions expressed by the public are
disregarded. Attempts are made to limit
the right of public interest groups to bring lawsuits against environmental
abuses.
·
Agro-Business:
Enormous subsidies go to owners of agricultural lands, whether or not they are
farmers. Most subsidies go to large
corporate farms instead of family farms.
Agricultural products are protected from imports. Agricultural subsidies are maintained in
spite of their deleterious effect upon farmers in less developed countries.
·
Consumer Abuse:
Many new chemical and other products are not checked nor regulated. Commercial companies can deceptively
advertise their products, even ones which are harmful to their purchasers. Even where consumer safety laws exist,
inspections and enforcement are rare.
Dangerous chemicals and nuclear materials are inadequately protected
from accidents and terrorists.
·
Private Health Insurers: have been able to stop the provision of universal
health insurance. The Medicare
prescription bill subsidizes them, requires participants to use them instead of
the regular Medicare coverage, and allows them to set their own conditions and
rates. Due to the added expense of using
private insurers, the bill provides a donut hole. Many seniors gain no advantage from the
prescription bill, but take to guarantee they would have coverage if they
become ill such that they require more medicines.
·
Pharmaceuticals:
are protected from foreign competition and from government bargaining
concerning their prices. They have also
been able to manipulate the patent system to maintain long monopolies.
·
Worker Abuse:
Laws protecting the right to unionize and strike are not enforced. The number of people eligible for overtime
pay has been reduced. Safety regulations
are inadequate and unenforced.
·
Globalization:
Companies are able to register in other countries and maintain fraudulent
accounting, such that they avoid taxes.
Companies can unfairly import products which are made through exploiting
foreign environments and labor. Products
that are insufficiently inspected for their safety.
·
Media: Using
our public airwaves free of charge, our commercial media face few restrictions
concerning their content or advertising.
They have been allowed to merge, such that a few giant firms control
what viewers in most markets can see and hear.
They have been reducing the news content, such that increasingly they
are simply publicists for our governing regime and its cronys.
·
More: Much
more could be described about each of the above categories of corporate abuse
and others. For more information about
any of them, go to our
reading list. We will be focusing
and elaborating upon each of abuses and abusers in this newsletter throughout
2009.
Most
Americans believe that corporations have too much influence over our
government. But few realize the extent
to which corporate abuse permeates our whole society or the details. If all corporate abuse ended tomorrow, we
would receive more of the money we earn, have much better working conditions
with allowances for our personal and family lives, be freed of most commercial
attempts to control our consumption, be able to manage our money more
inexpensively and safely as we spend, save for the future and borrow as
necessary to satisfy long term desires. Publicly, we would be better able to
invest to maintain our infrastructure and create new knowledge and
technologies.
Needed
reforms include recognizing that corporations are not people. They are too limited morally and too powerful
to be given the same civil and political rights as people. They should be chartered at local, state,
national or international levels, depending on their reach, with charters that
require representation of more stakeholders and restrict them to specific purposes,
with periodic renewal required, and appropriate enforced penalties for violate
of regulations. The more an industry
leans toward monopoly, the more its prices should be regulated.
For
each of the abuses cited above, more specific remedies are required. But specific remedies depend upon the general
reforms described in the preceding paragraph.
Otherwise the specific abuses will continually re-emerge.
Making
these reforms will depend upon the Barack Obama administration and
congress. Early in his campaign, Obama
focused upon bringing people together to make change, with little detail about
what changes and the obstacles that corporate power would pose. After building large public support, he
provided more detail and began to identify corporate power as the opponent to
be overcome. During his transition, he
has focused upon five policy areas: reviving our economy, environment, health,
education and foreign policy.
Corporate
abuse provides major impediments to improving our economy. Reviving our economy will require stopping
many corporate abuses. We can expect
strong corporate reactions and difficult political struggles when we move
beyond an immediate stimulus package, to reforming our legal, financial, and
economic system.
He
has scarcely mentioned the opposition that can be expected from powerful
corporations and industries. His
appointees have no track record of strongly attacking corporate power. Key indicators that he will tackle this issue
are whether he drastically reduces our military budget and eliminates many
corporate subsides. Will his health
reform reduce the control of private insurers and pharmaceutical
companies? Will monopolies be resisted
and even split, to restore competition?
Will our media become more competitive?
Few
of our congress members emphasize restricting corporate power and abuse. Just Google our Washington state congress
members and visit their websites. Nor do
we find it a prominent issue for our governor and state legislators. We have many advocacy organizations in
Washington, but none that specifically focus upon restricting corporate power
and abuse.
We
cannot depend upon Ralph Nader and Dennis Kucinich to lead corporate
reform. We will have to exert ourselves
to influence Barack Obama to take this on when he has amassed the political
support that he needs. Dave Thomas
Lessons from Bernard Madoff’s Scam
·
If it’s too good
to be true, it isn’t true.
·
Higher risk
invariably accompanies higher returns.
·
Security rests
only in complete understanding of how returns are produced and the risks.
·
Relying on the
opinions of reputable experts will get you in trouble.
·
Avoid infectious
greed, especially if security is important.
Assuming
these lessons are correct, the victim’s who participated in Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi Scheme paid the
price for ignoring them. What fascinates
me is the number of prominent people and even supposedly financial experts fell
for Madoff’s scam. If you can’t believe
in these people’s financial judgment, whose judgment can you believe in? If you can’t believe in anyone’s judgment,
you better get the relevant facts. If
you don’t know how to get or understand the relevant facts, you better avoid putting
you money there.
Madoff’s scam is
only one instance of a pattern of corporate deception and abuse.
Spam Is Here, There, Everywhere
Spam does not only arrive through the internet. Through emails. And many varieties of pop-up and other
commercials which appear when we browse the web. We also get spam through our snail mail. And through our telephone. And through our television. And through our newspapers and
magazines. And visual and audible
messages in public places.
It targets all of us, especially our most vulnerable: our children and
less financially capable seniors. Even
taking steps to escape spam, we are still besieged by it. We wouldn’t want to revert to the lifestyle
of our ancestors, the cavemen. But the
cavemen had it better than us in one way.
No spam. How far we have fallen.
Lee Iacocca: Where Have All the Leaders Gone?
Remember Lee Iacocca, the man who rescued Chrysler Corporation from its death throes? He's
now 82 years old and has a new book, Where
Have All the Leaders Gone?
Lee Iacocca Says:
'Am I the only
guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our
outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder! We've got a gang of clueless
bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate
gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much
less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting
mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, 'Stay the course.'
Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the
damned, 'Titanic'. I'll give you a sound bite: 'Throw all the bums out!'
You might think
I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone
has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The most famous business leaders are not the
innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we're fiddling in Iraq , the Middle East is
burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving 'pom-poms'
instead of asking hard questions. That's not the promise of the ' America ' my
parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I've had enough. How about
you?
I'll go a step
further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a
fight I'm ready and willing to have. The Biggest 'C' is Crisis! (Iacocca
elaborates on nine C's of leadership, with crisis being the first.) Leaders are made, not born. Leadership is
forged in times of crisis. It's easy to sit there with your feet up on the desk
and talk theory. Or send someone else's kids off to war when you've never seen
a battlefield yourself. It's another thing to lead when your world comes
tumbling down.
On September
11, 2001, we needed a strong leader more than any other time in our
history. We needed a steady hand to guide us out of the ashes. A hell of a
mess, so here's where we stand.
· We're immersed in a bloody war with no
plan for winning and no plan for leaving.
· We're running the biggest deficit in the
history of the country.
· We're losing the manufacturing edge to Asia, while our once-great companies are getting
slaughtered by health care costs.
· Gas prices are skyrocketing, and nobody
in power has a coherent energy policy. Our schools are in trouble.
· Our borders are like sieves.
· The middle class is being squeezed every
which way.
These are times
that cry out for leadership. But when
you look around, you've got to ask: 'Where have all the leaders gone?' Where
are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character,
courage, conviction, omnipotence, and common sense? I may be a sucker for
alliteration, but I think you get the point.
· Name me a leader who has a better idea
for homeland security than making us take off our shoes in airports and throw
away our shampoo?
· We've spent billions of dollars building
a huge new bureaucracy, and all we know how to do is react to things that have
already happened.
· Name me one leader who emerged from the
crisis of Hurricane Katrina. Congress has yet to
spend a single day evaluating the response to the hurricane or demanding
accountability for the decisions that were made in the crucial hours after the
storm.
· Everyone's hunkering down, fingers
crossed, hoping it doesn't happen again. Now, that's just crazy. Storms happen.
Deal with it. Make a plan. Figure out what you're going to do the next time.
· Name me an industry leader who is
thinking creatively about how we can restore our competitive edge in
manufacturing. Who would have believed that there could ever be a time when
'The Big Three' referred to Japanese car companies? How did this happen, and
more important, what are we going to do about it?
· Name me a government leader who can
articulate a plan for paying down the debit, or solving the energy crisis, or managing the health care problem. The
silence is deafening. But these are the crises that are eating away at our
country and milking the middle class dry.
I have news for
the gang in Congress. We didn't elect you to sit on your asses and do nothing
and remain silent while our democracy is being hijacked and our greatness is
being replaced with mediocrity. What is everybody so afraid of? That some
bonehead on Fox News will call them a name? Give
me a break. Why don't you guys show some spine for a change?
Had Enough? Hey, I'm not trying to be the voice of gloom and doom
here. I'm trying to light a fire. I'm speaking out because I have hope -
I believe in America. In my lifetime, I've had the privilege of living through
some of America's greatest moments. I've also experienced some of our
worst crises: The 'Great Depression,' 'World War II,' the 'Korean War,'
the 'Kennedy Assassination,' the 'Vietnam War,'
the 1970's oil crisis, and the struggles of recent years culminating with 9/11.
If I've learned
one thing, it's this: 'You don't get anywhere by standing on the sidelines
waiting for somebody else to take action. Whether it's building a better car or
building a better future for our children, we all have a role to play. That's
the challenge I'm raising in this book. It's a "Call
to Action" for people who, like me, believe i n America '. It's not
too late, but it's getting pretty close. So let's shake off the crap and go to
work. Let's tell 'em all we've had 'enough.'
Make your own
contribution by sending this to everyone you know and care about. It's our
country, folks, and it's our future. Our future is at stake!! Lee
Iacocca
The Falling Price of Oil: A Mixed
Blessing
I have been surprised that the price of oil and gasoline has fallen so
rapidly. With demand falling below our
peak supply, prices have plummeted.
These lower prices will oppose our attempts to conserve energy and
switch to non-carbon fuels. Thus
continuing our pollution which contributes to bad health and global
warming. And our dependence upon foreign
oil to the detriment of our trade balance.
But during our severe financial collapse, it is helpful to be able to
divert money spent buying gasoline and heating oil to other consumption and
investment. If 200 million drivers drive
an average of 15 thousand miles per year in vehicles averaging 25 miles per
gallon, they use 120 billion gallons per year.
If gasoline costs $2 less per gallon, drivers are saving $240 billion a
year. This can provide much stimulus to
our economy, whether spent as private consumption or public investment. It may provide as half as much as we will
spend on an economic stimulus recovery program.
Or more than enough to reform our health insurance system.
Mid-East Madness
While producing fewer casualties than the Congo, Darfur, Myanmar and
Sri Lanka violence, the Israeli-Palestinian violence has lasted the
longest. Yet the way to end it seems
fairly obvious. As the U.N. intervened
in Cyprus to separate Greek and Turkish Cypriots, so the United Nations should
intervene along the border between Israel and Palestine. Each country should have complete control of
their side of the border and be prevented from attacking the other side.
Unfortunately, this solution is blocked by the United States, making us
largely responsible for the continuation of this Mid-East madness. Let us hope that Barack Obama realizes that
resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict requires United Nations
intervention. For more. For more.
Here’s the Beef
Kept outside power
centers, women are more likely to become whistleblowers and strong regulators.
Immigrants
can help our economy.
Needed changes in our
agro-industrial system.
Conservation is quicker
remedy for global warming, but long term green technologies are needed.
Congressional
Progressive Caucus proposes $1trillion recovery
package. For
more.
Important websites for understanding our financial crisis.
A brief overview
of our financial bubble and meltdown.
Credit
is available to qualified borrowers, but their decreased net worth motivates
people to save.
Stop our consumption binge and
unnecessary war. Invest in America.
Will Americans give up our
excessive consumption?
China
funded our consumption binge.
Our
United States is giving Israel $30 billion in military aid over ten years.
How does Israel expect to
benefit from its incarceration and bombing of Gaza people?
Israel can’t starve or bomb
Palestinians into accepting their Israeli occupation.
Israel won nothing by
invading Lebanon. Will invading Gaza be
different?
Our
Liberal Spirit
What’s
the secret of a good rain dance? Timing.
Very
early, we all learn about the importance of timing. And how to time our actions. Make a request when your parents are in a
good mood. Give them good news along
with and before giving them bad news. We
may learn to prepare before doing, instead of just impulsively doing. We learn to plan our actions, so that we can
efficiently do some things together, while separating others. Some of us become much better than others at
patiently timing our actions for best effect.
Barack
Obama confessed that he was disorganized and often displaced things without
assistance from Michelle and others.
While he may be disorganized spatially, he certainly isn’t
temporally. He carefully rolled out his
campaign as a sequence of moves which continually built his support. As president, timing will also be crucial to
his success.
We expect
that Barack Obama will begin with various low-hanging fruit. Executive orders concerning human rights,
environmental, worker, family and other fairly non-controversial issues which
will favorably impress various groups of his supporters. His first large proposal will be a popular
jobs economic stimulus recovery package, including projects of interest to
various groups: state and local government officials, workers, environmentalists,
educators, and more. He will follow this
with a health reform bill, which will be cautious enough to win approval, while
building support for future improvements.
We can also expect Obama to clearly begin to withdraw our troops from
Iraq. Later will be further bills
dealing with conservation; non-carbon based energy and education. We can expect that he will frame these
various proposals to divide Conservatives, with some supporting and others
opposing them.
More questionable is when he will begin the largest
struggle: the struggle against corporate power and abuse. When will he think he has enough support that
he can win against corporations which are deeply entrenched within our
political system? When, if ever, will he
believe that he can force new politics and anew party practices upon political
vested interests? Similarly, when will
he engage gay issues, such as don’t ask, don’t tell?
Just as many Liberals were impatient with Barack
Obama’s steady campaign approach, we can guess that many will be impatient with
his governing approach. Many of us will
want it all and want it now. We should
have learned as children, we can push for it and sooner. But we won’t get it all and now. And pushing too hard may produce less and
later. Dave Thomas
ecommended Books – See our list of books for liberals
Charles
Derber, 2004, Regime Change Begins at
Home, Freeing America from Corporate Rule
Robert
Kennedy, Jr., 2004, Crimes against
Nature, How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals are Plundering the Country
and Hijacking Our Democracy
Senator Byron Dorgan, 2006, Take This Job and Ship It, How Corporate Greed and Brain-Dead Politics
Are Selling Out America
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