"Voracious hunger is a sign of manliness"

Footnoote to two preceding posts, off a snippet from one of the links.

That line, "voracious hunger is a sign of manliness:" Whopper commercials and certain sportsy or fratly subcultures aside, you may not have seen that as being particularly true these days, even though its converse clearly still is. Ever since at least the 80's and the spawn of yuppie culture there's been an uneasy coexistence between the ol' "real men EAT, make strong like OX" and at least a nod or so to the idea of being relatively "healthy," "cut," drinking protein shakes and running on treadmills and shit. There are obviously other factors at work here, class not least of them. Masculinity is still as associated with power as it ever was, but the sleeker and faster advanced technocracy gets, the more likely you are to see power reflected by efficient eating habits and fat-free bodies: the straightforward opulence of a Diamond Jim Brady becomes replaced by the more ascetic ostentation of personal trainers and individually tailored "special" diets, the better to achieve that lean, mean, hard look.

If you -really- want to see hilariously over the top odes to the Manly Appetite, though...well, let's take a trip in the wayback machine, shall we?

I'm reading this anthology called Endless Feasts, a collection of essays from the soon-to-be-defunct magazine Gourmet. (One thing I may or may not have talked about here is: I read food porn. A lot of food porn. While I'm eating, specifically. I have my little habits, which...some other post).

Anyway, in this compilation, there are several essays by one Robert P. Coffin, each more exuberantly masculine than the last. The first two have to do with huntin' and fishin' with one's brothers in the wild, having dispensed with such "suave and civilized meats" as sweetbreads on toast: ripping apart hunks of lobster with one's bare hands, scarfing down deer limbs washed down with whiskey from the bottle, that sort of thing. Very proto-Iron John, very...woodsy.

The third piece, "Down East Breakfast"-- I'll just give you a taste, okay.

The Maine morning meal is like a tune on the bagpipes which calls the stouthearted Scot to war. It is something that must strengthen him deep to his marrow, and only the masculine and downright victuals will do. The ordinary American breakfast, with its precooked and predigested cereals, its hummingbird nectar of citrus, butterflies of bacon, and anemias of eggs, is as much out of place in Maine as...a French breakfast of a dry roll and chocolat chaud... It would be an insult to his oily manhood. Fat is the foe of weather, and fat is the making of Maine's first meal...

...The Maine breakfast is a hefty meal for hefty he-men.

...It begins with a seething and bubbling of pork fat in the skillet or spider. Fat salt pork in chunks, not lean and feminine bacon rashers, is its base.

...The Down East flapjack is the outdoors, masculine, New World crepe Suzette. It is about as much like its relative in Paris, in London, or in our own Sunny South, as an All-American tackle is like a boy in pants six inches long playing with a ten-cent-store football.

...In any case, there must be the cheese. And when I say cheese, I don't mean something that starts out as a mollycoddle of a food for babies, like milk. I mean...calf's head cheese or pig's head cheese. I mean meat...This is strenuous and fine eating, and it makes a "stick-by-the-ribs-Billy" dish that dish that will take a man straight through three cords of beechwood...without a rest and with a song in the heart.

...Naturally--and this breakfast is all nature and good-natured eating--there is a liquid constantly drunk to float all these ships of heavy meats and fish and wheat or buckwheat on. It is tea...It is as black as your hat. It is about as near to the tea drunk as tea parties by women and womanish men as the male in three-cornered pants is to the adult one in overalls that can stand by themselves...

...Some of the older men a bit past their full bloom, or some younger ones not yet come to theirs and having peach fuzz instead of whiskers on their cheeks, dilute this tea with sugar or milk. But the middle and powerful males take its tannin into themselves neat. It galvanizes their "innerds," they say, against the damp and cold...[A] wise saying is that tea is tea only when it puts whiskers on the bottom of the soles of your feet. Maine men's feet have hair on their bottoms so they can cling to their dories and rolling logs...

...The Down East breakfast is the strong meal of strong men.

At the conclusion of a meal like this--or more accurately, writing up the vicarious experience of it, as the actual Maine he-men are already lumbering off to put in a hard day's work stacking cords in the bitter cold-- presumably one lights up not an effeminate cigarette but a foot-long, thick, masculine cigar with a fine strong honest smell. None of your Cuban imports either, but a plain straightforward -American- cigar, completely free of foreign impurities and effete insinuating subtext.

The gentleman, perhaps, protests too much. But what exactly is it that he's protesting?

At first glance it's not a "protest" at all; it's a celebration of, well, bigness. Male bigness, but also American bigness. Clearly the particular cultural myth the author is appealing to goes back a long way, at least as far as, say, Paul Bunyan, Giant in a Great Land,. This piece was written shortly after WWII, when America was on top of the world, and Gourmet, along with the idea that fancy eating is a legitimate American pasttime, was in its early years.

And yet one could argue that there's a hint of...anxiety, here. The author, remember, is writing for Gourmet readers, which from the onset was decidedly on the upscale, not-very-likely-to-be-doing-much-cordwood-chopping side. "The Magazine of Good Living." The Song Of Masculinity is all entangled with class: it's basically romanticization of Hard Work And Simple Living, Like Our Pioneer Forefathers (and Their Helpmeets) Practiced. And which, one gathers from the Huck-Finn like paens to escaping the study and running wild in the woods with his pals, doesn't much resemble the life of the author or his audience; otherwise, it probably wouldn't seem that romantic.

This is all decades before the "wealth gap" widened dramatically. Second Wave feminism's still in its nascency, but Rosie the Riveter now has to be considered as competition for the men returning from the war. We're still a long way from the analysis of, say, Stiffed, or Stuffed and Starved; ironically, the era Coffin is writing from is one that's now viewed nostalgically itself. Traditional Families, Hard Work In The Heartland, Father Knows Best. As the ulcerated CEO's on their treadmills can attest, perhaps, even the simple joys of gorging oneself aren't that simple anymore.

Whatever the men are hungry for-along with the rest of us- it's probably not going be satisfied with a big breakfast, if indeed it ever was.

Yessir, that's our Gubernator

Meanwhile, back in sunny Cali:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger did not get the election results he sought. Now he seems determined to show California voters the consequences.

In a special election on May 19, voters rejected a batch of measures on increasing taxes, borrowing funds and reapportioning state money that were designed to close a multibillion-dollar budget gap. The cuts Mr. Schwarzenegger has proposed to make up the difference, if enacted by the Legislature, would turn California into a place that in some ways would be unrecognizable in modern America: poor children would have no health insurance, prisoners would be released by the thousands and state parks would be closed.

Nearly all of the billions of dollars in cuts the administration has proposed would affect programs for poor Californians, although prisons and schools would take hits, as well.

All his cuts target the poor and the disenfranchised, but, well, gosh, there's a good reason for that:

“Government doesn’t provide services to rich people,” Mike Genest, the state’s finance director, said on a conference call with reporters on Friday. “It doesn’t even really provide services to the middle class.” He added: “You have to cut where the money is.”

Blinded. I'm blinded. Fucking brilliant.

Solid Democratic majority in Senate fulfills socialists' wildest dreams. Oh, wait.

How odd. Somehow, the banks still won. Handily. Sorry, former homeowners who're now shit out of house, home and luck; you know, if it weren't for the liberal fascists, you wouldn't be in this mess.

By the way, if you haven't been reading David Neiwert and Sara Robinson's comprehensive (and sobering) analysis of the increasingly dangerous rhetoric/atmosphere coming out of the right wing, you really should. (See recent entries as well as series listed in the sidebar).

(huh huh huh "teabagging" huh huh huh)

I love Rachel Maddow. I do.



ETA: and I <3 Bint Alshamsa, too.

Oh well. -bites lip- Blessums Wepublicans. Srsly, never change. Happy Day Of Amorphous Outrage! And, uh, huh, huh, uh...*ehem*. With the...teabags...there. Yeah.

"You should only enjoy it."

ETA: ooooops, appo polly loggies. THAT'S NOT FUNNY. So wipe that smile off your face right now.

Many conservatives were angered by the segment's bathroom humor, while others merely shrugged it off as par for the course among progressive personalities like Ms. Maddow.

..."I'm not offended by it. I expect it. They have responded to popular sentiment across the country by acting like kids on a playground," said RedState's Erik Erikson, who just days ago was earnestly speculating that Levi Johnston and his sister were in an incestuous relationship.

(I know y'all care deeply, DEEPLY, about all this shit)

Anyway. Like I said. I'm so, so, sorry. Certainly the -last- thing I would ever want for this blog is to be perceived as cheap and vulgar.

Oh, hey, look over at Iceland: world's first openly gay leader!

And a woman, also, too, yet. Johanna Sigurdardottir. True, she got the gig in the wake of the entire country melting down totally and mass resignation of the previous government, and is just holding an interim position till elections in May; but, y'know, progress is progress...

Petition against Larry Summers for Treasurer

Form here.

No Foxes in the Henhouse!


The Washington Note is reporting that former Clinton official Larry Summers is one of the leading nominees to become the Treasury Secretary for the Obama administration. In 1999, Summers was one of the key proponents of the banking deregulation that led to the rise of 'mega-banks' and the current financial crisis. At the time, Senators like Byron Dorgan and policy advocates like Public Campaign were warning the financial deregulation, but Summers did not listen. In addition to this remarkable lapse in judgment, Larry Summers has argued that women are innately less gifted in science than men, that 'Africa is Underpolluted', that child sweatshop work in Asia can be justified, and that energy used to oppose job destroying trade agreements was "very, very badly misplaced".

President-elect Obama spoke eloquently and often about the perils of deregulation and trade agreements that do not include worker and environmental protection, and excesses on Wall Street due to governance failures. Let's ask him to put someone in charge who did not actually help cause the current crisis, who did not contribute to the bleeding of America's industrial base, and who is not part of the corrupted failed elite that has ravaged our country.

A fuller description of the petition is here.

When you sign this petition, your comments will go to John Podesta and Michael Strautmanis of the Obama transition team.

My comments:

Dear Obama, I fully expect crushing disappointments, don't get me wrong, but it'd be nice if you could at least wait until -after- the inauguration.

and now, a word from Memorex America

on the "s" word; it isn't "shoes," no.

I love the pretty, frilly, shiny items. I love designer shoes and handbags. I started my addiction for Lorac cosmetics back when I had money. I still have a once a year craving for a splurge at Sephora. I can't tell you how much I would love it for someone to come hand me $150,000 for a shopping spree. Although, seeing some of my friends and family barely holding on financially, I couldn't.

I sit and listen to Carly Fiorina define, out of a dictionary, socialism. Then goes on to say that Obama's idea for government healthcare is socialist. You know, there is a woman in my city who needs cancer treatment, it is experimental and stem cell based so the insurance will not cover it. The oncologist will meet her halfway and donate $100,000 of the treatment if she can raise the rest. So far, local fundraisers have brought her total to $33,000. Can you imagine? The only thing standing in the way of this woman raising her young daughter is half of Palin's new wardrobe.

I get so angry. The republicans are now talking about how spreading the wealth around would be a bad thing, after we have suffered such a bleed of wealth in the past few years that went straight to the top. Why wouldn't they want to fix that? Why wouldn't they want healthcare for single mothers who can't afford their cancer treatment? These people wave their wealth in our faces while we try to figure out how to stay alive.

We need community and compassion back. We need a responsibility to each other. We need to stop waging financial war upon each other. This money madness has to stop. Where has the compassion gone? How can the republicans believe what is coming out of their own mouths? How can they continue to support their words and deeds with a straight face?

I read the news today, O boy

So, in case you hadn't been following, it would appear that Wall Street and/or the government (because they are completely separate entities as it stands, of course: we're not SOCIALISTS or nuffin') got into a wee spot of trouble, which means we the people are also...implicated. The proposal to save us all went a little something like this:

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson

(thanks for the h/t, ravenmn)

And for the past few days, all signs have been pointing to, everyone hates the idea but we're gonna pass it because otherwise it's going to be even fucking worse. Going to have been. Whatever tense that is. Well...


"Is that the sound of tinkling ice and the warbling notes of Celine Dion in the distance?

In a vote that shook the government, Wall Street and markets around the world, the House on Monday defeated a $700 billion emergency rescue for the nation's financial system, leaving both parties' lawmakers and the Bush administration scrambling to pick up the pieces. Dismayed investors sent the Dow Jones industrials plunging nearly 800 points, the most ever for a single day.

...All sides agreed the effort to bolster beleaguered financial markets, potentially the biggest government intervention since the Great Depression, could not be abandoned.

But in a remarkable display on Monday, a majority of House members slapped aside the best version their leaders and the administration had been able to come up with, bucking presidential speeches, pleading visits from Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and urgent warnings that the economy could nosedive without the legislation.

In the face of thousands of phone calls and e-mails fiercely opposing the measure, many lawmakers were not willing to take the political risk of voting for it just five weeks before the elections.

The bill went down, 228-205.

...The final stock carnage was 777 points, far surpassing the 684-point drop on the first trading day after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

In the House, "no" votes came from both the Democratic and Republican sides of the aisle. More than two-thirds of Republicans and 40 percent of Democrats opposed the bill. Several Democrats in close election fights waited until the last moment, then went against the bill as it became clear the vast majority of Republicans were opposing it.

...A brutal round of partisan finger-pointing followed the vote.

Republicans blamed Pelosi's scathing speech near the close of the debate — which assailed Bush's economic policies and a "right-wing ideology of anything goes, no supervision, no discipline, no regulation" of financial markets — for the defeat. It was not much different from her usual tough words against the president and his party.

"We could have gotten there today had it not been for the partisan speech that the speaker gave on the floor of the House," Boehner said.

Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., the whip, estimated that Pelosi's speech changed the minds of a dozen Republicans who might otherwise have supported the plan.

That amounted to an appalling accusation by Republicans against Republicans, said Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., chairman of the Financial Services Committee: "Because somebody hurt their feelings, they decide to punish the country."

More than a repudiation of Democrats, Frank said, Republicans' refusal to vote for the bailout was a rejection of their own president.

Well. Yeah. Lissen, whatever else we lose from here on out, I think we'll be mining rich lodes of irony and schadenfreude for the next while.

and then, well, I like this, I do:

McCain takes credit for bill before it loses

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and his top aides took credit for building a winning bailout coalition – hours before the vote failed and stocks tanked.

Shortly before the vote, McCain had bragged about his involvement and mocked Sen. Barack Obama for staying on the sidelines.

“I've never been afraid of stepping in to solve problems for the American people, and I'm not going to stop now,” McCain told a rally in Columbus, Ohio. “Sen. Obama took a very different approach to the crisis our country faced. At first he didn't want to get involved. Then he was monitoring the situation.”

McCain, grinning, flashed a sarcastic thumbs up....

Meanwhile, we're all waiting with bated breath for this next round of debates. If nothing else, McCain/Palin win this, not just Tina Fey but a whole shitload of comedians should have fairly steady incomes. Do you know, she's still going, is Palin, with Couric? I mean, there's MOAR:

CBS News released an excerpt from tonight's interview between Sarah Palin and Katie Couric on the trail in Ohio.

Couric: Gov. Palin, since our last interview, you've gotten a lot of flak. Some Republicans have said you're not prepared; you're not ready for prime time. People have questioned your readiness since that interview. And I'm curious …

Palin: Yeah.

Couric: … to hear your reaction.

Palin: Well, not only am I ready but willing and able to serve as vice president with Sen. McCain if Americans so bless us and privilege us with the opportunity of serving them, ready with my executive experience as a city mayor and manager, as a governor, as a commissioner, a regulator of oil and gas.

Oh, this is a new one; the last interview was the one with gems like this, on the bailout:

That’s why I say I, like every American I’m speaking with, were ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health-care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, helping the—it’s got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health-care reform and reducing taxes and reining in
spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade, we’ve got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.

She was right about one thing, though:



(thanks for the h/t, Donna)

btw, I find the contrast in framing interesting, based on the pull quotes from Obama and McCain's respective post-fail video clips: (see current front page of yahoo)

McCain: "It's time to fix the problem"

Obama: "GOP has a failed philosophy."

Meanwhile, meant to say for a few days, I like this piece by hilzoy at obsidian wings a lot.

First: throughout all this, I've been torn between believing in market discipline and wanting to avoid moral hazard on the one hand, and thinking that of course that commitment flies out the window if we're seriously threatened with economic collapse, on the other. But it's worth remembering that we could have avoided having to choose between these unfortunate options. All we needed to do was have people in government who believed in good regulation.

Second: if anyone ever tells me that Republicans are the party of fiscal discipline ever again, I will either dissolve in laughter or bite their heads off. I don't know which. You have been warned.

Third: in particular, if any Republican ever tells me that a hundred million or so is just too much to pay to make sure that kids have health insurance, I will definitely bite his or her head off.

Fourth: I do not want to hear people tell me that regulation cripples the economy, unless they are willing to admit that a lack of regulation can also cripple the economy. Not ever. I don't understand why anyone is so much as tempted to think that "regulation" is good or bad, as a whole: to me, that's like being for or against "things" or "people". Some regulations are good, some are bad; obviously, we want people in government who can tell the difference, and implement regulatory systems that work well. However, altogether too many of my fellow citizens were willing to listen to ideologues, and now we all get to pay for their mistakes.

Fifth: if Obama wins, he and the Democrats will, in all probability, have to be the grownups once again. Reagan spent us blind; Clinton got us out of debt again. Now Bush has spent us even blinder, and we will be tempted, yet again, to put our ideas and aspirations on hold for the sake of the country.

I would like to hear one Republican, just once, acknowledge this fact.

I should also say: as people go, I am pretty willing to step up and be a grownup, even when other people aren't. But I am just about at the end of my rope. What that means, in practical terms, is that while early in the 90s I was willing to put various plans on hold for the sake of the country and its fiscal stability, I now think: Democrats' willingness to be sane and fiscally responsible just enables the Republicans. I am not willing to play that game. So don't count on me to think that universal health insurance is something we just can't afford any more.

Republican fiscal conservatives: if you've lost me, you've lost a whole lot of people. Because this is not a way of thinking that comes naturally to me at all. So step up to the plate and reform your party. You can't count on us to do your dirty work.

ETA: Queen Emily's post at Questioning Transphobia is well good also:

What I think this demonstrates is the utter improbability of anything resembling a welfare program in the United States. Can you imagine a similarly budgeted universal health care bill getting through?

*pause for laughter*

Because some things are necessary–like Wall Street making obscene amounts of money (and trickling it down, no really–and others, like access to health care and education, are not.

...All of this ...shows the woeful inadequacy of neoliberalism for fixing problems of its own creation. Those who will receive the worst of it will, as always, be those who can least afford it–poor people, immigrants, people of colour. People without money and social capital, “suspect populations” for the army to aimed at (since a racist system constitutes PoC largely as guilty unless proven otherwise)… And given the hysteria aimed at “illegal immigrants” it’s hard not to imagine an imminent campaign targeting immigrants as the internal antagonism responsible for the current crisis.

The response of Wall Street to its own incipient demise–to demand unimaginable amounts of money–amounts to more of the same. The mentality that creates disasters then reaps the rewards of the aftermath cannot be trusted to fix itself, let alone to take care of the average American, and nothing short of a massive change of political co-ordinates (such as the sort that can imagine universal health care, that will put human rights ahead of corporate interests) can make a bail-out anything more than a short term fix for an ailing economy feeding off its own death.

Yeah, basically.

Josh Marshall on McCain's attempt to postpone the debate in the name of (go on, you can say it with a straight face) putting the good of the nation over partisan politics.

Occasionally..., in a perverse kind of private entertainment, I've found myself imagining what would happen if I pawned off on someone just the ballsiest, most inane excuse for flaking on some commitment. And not something that people might buy -- nothing entertaining about that -- but just something completely off the wall and nonsensical. What would people's reaction be? Speechless, laughter, tearing me limb from limb? Would they ever speak to me again?

So, let's see, I can't moderate the panel because I've been called to Washington to give a special briefing on guerilla tactics to be used against the Taliban?

Or maybe, I want to be at the meeting, but as weird as this sounds, all the bridges and tunnels out of Manhattan have been shut for the day. Some counter-terrorism thing probably. I tried renting a helicopter but they're all booked by people at the UN.

Isn't this pretty much what John McCain tried to pull today? But actually really did it? And on a national stage? He wants to cancel the debate? And maybe also Palin's debate. Are you kidding? Why not cancel the election too? And because he has to go back to DC to solve the financial crisis? Really? The topic he knows nothing about and after he's shown up less in the senate in the last two years than anyone but Tim Johnson, the guy who had the stroke? Which of my employees is going to call from home tomorrow and say they can't come to work because of the financial crisis?

What gutted me was, the first I read of this, the article was making like saying "um, how about no" was going to put Obama in a bad light, which, I can't even look at the latest spin/etc., but, really:

--oh, the same yahoo link now goes to an update. Before Obama's response it was something like, it puts Obama in a bind, because if he says "yes" it looks like he's following McCain's lead and thus not, you know, leading; but if he says "no" it looks like he's rejecting McCain's noble, selfless call to put the good of the country first and that makes him, Obama that is, look bad...

thankfully, his response was only a slight elaboration on the answer that was going through my brain like a CNN news ticker as I rode the J-line right after reading that yesterday ("Betch, please.")

"It's my belief that this is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person who, in approximately 40 days, will be responsible for dealing with this mess," Obama said at a news conference in Clearwater, Fla. "It's going to be part of the president's job to deal with more than one thing at once."

Honestly, I have to say, if he -hadn't- responded with something like that, I'd have probably written him off for good, because part of the president's or rather any effective politician's job is -also- to smack down such transparently bullshit manipulations as that as clearly and succinctly as possible.

I mean, it took chutzpah, I'll give him that, McCain. Sadly, all too often over the past umpty years, that's been enough to carry the fuckheads in charge through. Spit and chutzpah. "The Big Lie." Please Deity that -might- finally be coming to an end. -Please.-

and um yeah, hopefully a bit more will be said, come the day, on oh maybe -why- we're in this fucking meltdown in the first place.

I mean, not that I in any way suspect ulterior motives to McCain's wish to "cease campaigning" much less (!!) CANCEL THE DEBATE right about now, and particularly put the kibosh on any heated arguments over the IMMINENT ECONOMIC FUCKING CRISIS MY DOG WE NEVER SAW THAT COMING LO ALL THESE MONTHS AND YEARS, not in the light of say news tidbits like this:

Source: McCain aide's firm paid by Freddie Mac
By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer Wed Sep 24, 7:09 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Almost up until the time it was taken over by the government in the nation's financial crisis, one of two housing giants paid $15,000 a month to the lobbying firm of John McCain's campaign manager, a person familiar with the financial arrangement says.

The money from Freddie Mac to the firm of Rick Davis is on top of more than $30,000 a month that went directly to Davis for five years starting in 2000.

The $30,000 a month came from both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the other housing entity now under government control because of the nation's financial crisis.

Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper, reported early Tuesday evening that Davis' lobbying firm remained on the Freddie Mac payroll. The New York Times reported all the payments, posting an article on its Web site Tuesday night revealing the $15,000 a month to the firm of Davis Manafort. The newspaper quoted two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement.

On Wednesday, the campaign of McCain's Democratic presidential rival, Barack Obama, accused Davis and McCain's campaign of not telling the truth about Davis' continuing financial relationship with Freddie Mac.

Campaign spokesman Dan Pfeiffer said it was troubling that Davis' firm "continued to be compensated by Freddie Mac until as recently as last month, but that the firm did little work and apparently was being paid simply to provide access to the McCain campaign."

McCain' vice presidential running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, said her understanding was that Davis had recused himself from the firm's business.

"I don't know how long ago, a year or two ago that he's not benefiting from that," she said when questioned about the payments during an interview Wednesday with "CBS Evening News" anchor Katie Couric. "And you know, I was ... I would hope that's not the case..."

Wouldn't you just.

But I mean, yeah, fuck knows, let's all come together and solve this problem, let's not point any fingers of blame, what's done is done, (just like Iraq, it's not like anyone's to BLAME for that being a fuckup, it just HAPPENED, let's move on, you know, let's not be ANGRY or anything)-- let's all just sing Kumbaya for six weeks until the election which is actually going to happen regardless, I didn't see any call for postponing the ELECTION, mind you, not even o somehow trying to get it on a weekend, as long as we're changing Big Shit at the very last minute, and hey maybe some more of the voters who aren't -yet- unemployed from the fallout of Big Fucking Greedy Institutional Bastards Who Overate And Have National Indigestion Now can actually go and fucking vote...

I mean, let's not get carried -away- or anything. Let's be, you know, -reasonable.- Noble, selfless, concerned for the nation's wellbeing as opposed to one's personal career and/or sorry ass, etc. etc. etc.

you MAVERICK, you.

ETA: oh dear, looks like the Dems really aren't feelin' the bipartisan luv. I'm surprised and saddened, I really am:

Democrats think that Republicans were backing away from a compromise many of them agreed to earlier Thursday — without McCain's involvement — in order to give McCain time to play a role and perhaps appear as a rescuer.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he believed the breakdown was simply an effort to allow McCain to miss Friday night's scheduled debate with Obama.

Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, seconded that belief. "I think McCain was hurting politically," Frank said. "I think this was a campaign ploy."

When McCain arrived in Washington to discover that an agreement was near, Frank said, it became necessary to upset it so that McCain could later be seen to have played a role. "He's making it harder to get things done," Frank said.

...fuck it, I keep saying I'm not paying attention to this shit, but it's time, I guess: tis now and truly the season. and hey, if everything burns down around our ears at least it makes the popcorn pop more better. Pass it over here.

-chomp chomp chomp-

Still more on McCain: "It's the economy, ____" edition

Continuing.

McCain, small-c conservative (i.e. "fiscal"), which one assumes means "friend of the working Joe."

Well, probably it won't come as a surprise that he's not backed by the Teamsters, first of all; still, for those Dems or independents or "other" still thinking there's no difference between him and Their Favorite Candidate:

Both McCain and Bush support anti-union laws that make it harder for workers to unionize. They want to privatize Social Security. They have no meaningful plan to deal with our country's health care crisis. And they dismiss the good-paying manufacturing jobs we lost due to NAFTA with no plans to replace them. In January, McCain even said that "there are some jobs that aren't coming back to Michigan."

...Unfortunately, many Americans share our woes in Michigan. Since Bush took office, not only are we working harder for less, but 2 million more of us are out of work and 11 million more lack health care insurance. We have had slow wage growth, skyrocketing costs for gasoline and health insurance, and four straight months of job losses. Foreclosure is a looming possibility for millions of families.

Yet McCain believes we don't need to significantly change course. He credits Bush for overseeing "great progress economically," but he fails to mention that for the first time since World War II, we have experienced sustained national economic growth while personal incomes have dropped. McCain's economic stimulus plan is based on increased deregulation, slashing corporate taxes from 35 percent to 25 percent, and making permanent the Bush income tax cuts, which disproportionately benefit the wealthy.

The tax cuts illustrate how McCain has turned his back on working-class Americans' problems. In 2001, when the cuts were debated in Congress, McCain was one of just two Senate Republicans to oppose these taxes due to concerns that turned out to be accurate—increased budget deficits, unanticipated defense costs and a costly Iraq war. He has switched to court the divisive supporters of President Bush.

Unlike the Democratic presidential candidates, McCain is opposed to renegotiating the so-called free trade agreements that have resulted in 3.7-million U.S. manufacturing jobs being lost in the past 10 years—a major factor in Michigan being one of only two states to lose jobs in the same period. These are the same pro-business policies that have helped make it so difficult for working-class Americans to make a living...

Okay, so granted, not everyone is exactly down with Jim Hoffa either. Say one takes a more business-minded view of things. At random: Forbes magazine, for example, offers this assessment:

A UBS analyst said Wednesday the policies of Sen. John McCain would benefit restaurant and packaged food companies more than those of one of his Democratic rivals, Sen. Barack Obama.

...which sounds good. I mean, if you're a restaurant or packaged food company.

The candidate's tax platform - including lowering corporate tax rates and removing the alternative minimum tax - would also help pad margins and boost consumers discretionary spending if those changes were enacted, Palmer said.

In terms of health care legislation, the effect of a McCain presidency would be mixed for restaurants and food companies. Palmer said companies would be worse off if McCain were to require them to contribute to a national health insurance plan.

Earlier this week, McCain unveiled a plan that would propose offering tax credits to individuals and their families so that people will buy health insurance on their own rather than through an employer.

Obama, meanwhile, has called for a national public health insurance program that would require companies to provide coverage for all employees or contribute to the public plan.

...which presumably means companies would be even more worser off if Obama's plan were enacted.

Which is something to take into consideration, because corporations are people too.

Of course, some might consider this stance a tad, well, elitist.

If you're receiving veteran's benefits for having served in the military but vote against others getting benefits, then it's probably a safe bet that you're an elitist.

If you're getting great government health care as a Senator but block underprivileged kids from getting it, then you may be an elitist.

If you own half a dozen or so houses and insist on blocking folks from mortgage relief while using tax dollars to bail out banks and mortgage companies who made questionable loans, then you just may qualify as an elitist.

If you and your wife are worth millions and intend to make permanent tax breaks that greatly benefit only the wealthiest, then some might regard you as the elitist candidate.

Of course, as we all know, that's not elitism; this is real elitism:

"Here's how it is: In a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long. They feel so betrayed by government that when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn't buy it. And when it's delivered by -- it's true that when it's delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama, then that adds another layer of skepticism."

...You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them.

"And they fell through the Clinton administration and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are going to regenerate and they have not," he went on. "And it's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

...And so people don't vote on economic issues, because they don't expect anybody's going to help them. People are voting on issues like guns, are they going to have the right to bear arms. They vote on issues like gay marriage. They take refuge in their faith and their community and their families and the things they can count on. But they don't believe they can count on Washington."

I mean, it might be true? but it's outrageous to SAY it. Actually, if you don't say it, it won't be true. Certainly it's wrong to suggest that people are (rightfully) cynical about previous government administrations, or that y'know, some people might be blaming the wrong people/factors for the economic depression.

"It's a remarkable statement and extremely revealing," McCain adviser Steve Schmidt said in a statement. "It shows an elitism and condescension towards hardworking Americans that is nothing short of breathtaking, it is hard to imagine someone running for president who is more out of touch with average Americans."

...see.

ETA: O lookie here, though, this just in, he just finally rejected the endorsements of Hagee and Parsley.

Which leads one to wonder who's ultimately going to have more staying power here: McCain, or Parsley.

Let's hope it's the beginning of the end of an era for both.

Quote of the day, 3/13/08

First of all, there is nothing inherently wrong with consumption. Shopping and consuming are enjoyable human activities and the marketplace has been a center of social life for thousands of years.

The locus of oppression resides in the production function: people have no control over which commodities are produced (or services performed), in what amounts, under what conditions, or how these commodities are distributed. Corporations make these decisions and base them solely on their profit potential.

As it is, the profusion of commodities is a genuine and powerful compensation for oppression. It is a bribe, but like all bribes it offers concrete benefits—in the average American’s case, a degree of physical comfort unparalleled in history. Under present conditions, people are preoccupied with consumer goods not because they are brainwashed but because buying is the one pleasurable activity not only permitted but actively encouraged by our rulers. The pleasure of eating an ice cream cone may be minor compared to the pleasure of meaningful, autonomous work, but the former is easily available and the latter is not. A poor family would undoubtedly rather have a decent apartment than a new TV, but since they are unlikely to get the apartment, what is to be gained by not getting the TV?

...If we are to build a mass movement we must recognize that no individual decision, like rejecting consumption, can liberate us. We must stop arguing about whose life style is better (and secretly believing ours is) and tend to the task of collectively fighting our own oppression and the ways in which we oppress others. When we create a political alternative to sexism, racism, and capitalism, the consumer problem, if it is a problem, will take care of itself.

--Ellen Willis, nineteen-sixty-fucking-nine

Quote of the day, 11/25/07

Consider the lilies, how they grow: they toil not, neither do they spin; yet I say unto you, Even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

Luke 12:27

as loosely inspired by this post, which you should read for a whole bunch of reasons.

Oh, ouch.

I hate Bush. I hate him so very, very much. I have a picture of him on a dart board. When I invite my friends over to have a pretend drive-in movie theatre on our roof top (most recently we had a screening of Inconvenient Truth, it was so educational) we play a drinking game before the movie and throw darts at Bush. I hope that doesn’t offend you, but you’re dying for nothing. I don’t even like driving.

Traffic is so bad out here. The 405 was murder this afternoon.

I want you to know I support you guys completely. I’m anti-Bush, not anti-you. No I can’t hire you or support an America that supports a high school level only educated person. If you have a baby and you can’t afford it, why should I pay for you?

I’m socially conscious, but fiscally conservative, but I am so very angry that we are at war for oil.

...It’s so unfair that you get paid about ten dollars a day and the people who are part of Blackwater get paid thousands and get to go home in a few months. You’re on your second tour? Or third tour right? Wow that sucks.

Just so you know every so often we go drive out and stand on the corner with signs. People honk and cheer for us, I mean for you. I know we could probably take the bus or something, but you know we have dogs and the bus is unsafe. I know it’s probably unsafe for you too, but we went to college...

excerpted from a heartfelt letter from a downtown Los Angeles war activist, at Braless Living L.A.

Meanwhile, in the rest of the world

Turkish troops may or may not have spilled across the northern Iraqi border in pursuit of Kurdish rebels, which is the sort of thing they've done before but not so much with a full scale shitstorm happening in Iraq at the same time.

Another day, another suicide attack. Hey, wouldn't you like to live in a city like this? Aren't you glad they're fighting it over there so it won't happen over here?



A giant-ass cyclone hit Oman, the strongest to ever hit the Arabian peninsula since records started, and oops, oil production might be affected.



We're not letting any Gee Ate tell us what to do, climate be damned

Some other people feel the same way about the G8, but for different reasons

Quote of the...era

He's right, you know. Kai, that is. Not the judge:

"This is the kind of offence that cannot be tolerated in our society," District Judge J Owen Forrester said when sentencing Williams

The offense?

Joya Williams, 42, was sentenced in Atlanta - Coca Cola's home - after being found guilty in February.

Then the court heard she stole confidential documents and samples of new products, passing them to two men to sell to Pepsi for at least $1.5m.

The sentence: Eight years in prison.

(By the way: do we know whatever happened to the Pepsi higher-up who commissioned this? --Oh, maybe there wasn't any; maybe she and one other dude concocted this all by themselves. The way you do).

In other Co-Cola news (yeah, I drink shitloads of the stuff),

Indian MPs have upheld the findings of an environment group which reported that Coca-Cola and Pepsi drinks contained pesticide residues.

Activists of the Indian Democratic Party protest in Delhi
The report sparked protests in India
The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) said last August that its investigations revealed the drinks contained harmful residues and posed a health risk.

The report led to a massive row with both Pepsico and Coca-Cola strenuously rejecting the allegations.

A public outcry led the government to form a parliamentary committee to examine the report.

and

Activists in India have held nationwide protests against multinational soft drink companies Coca-Cola and Pepsi.

Reports said thousands of protesters had gathered near manufacturing plants of the two firms and demanded that they stop production.

Activists want the firms to leave India because they say their plants deplete ground water - claims the soft drinks giants both strenuously deny.

and

Villagers, campaigners and a BBC radio programme have alleged that the plant in the state of Kerala is drying up local ground water and emitting toxic sludge.

For its part, the soft drinks giant strenuously denies the allegations.

The case is pitting the village council of Perumatti against perhaps the world's biggest brand name.

Hindustan Coca Cola opened its bottling factory there four years ago.

Since then local people have been reported as saying the company has soaked up excessive water and that water has turned foul and impossible to drink, cook with or bathe in.

Pesticide claims

In July BBC Radio's Face the Facts programme said there were high levels of toxic metals in the sludge generated by the plant when bottles are cleaned.

Coca Cola insists all its plants are safe and any toxins are within legal limits.

With this notice the council is giving the company 15 days to say why its plants should not be shut down.

If Coca Cola fails to convince, it will face a closure notice. The Kerala High Court will then decide on the legal weight of that notice.

In non-co-Cola related news:

The Jena case in brief

On the morning of September 1, 2006, three nooses dangled from a tree in the High School square in Jena, Louisiana. The day before, at a school assembly, black students had asked the vice principal if they could sit under that tree.

Characterizing the noose incident as an innocent prank, a discipline committee meted out a few days of in-school suspension and declared the matter settled.

At the end of November, the central academic wing of Jena High School was destroyed by fire (the smoke damage is evident in the picture above). Over the weekend, a stream of white-initiated racial violence swept over the tiny community, adding to the trauma and tension. The following Monday, a white student was punched and kicked following a lunch-hour taunting match. Six black athletes were arrested and charged with conspiracy to attempt second-degree murder. If convicted, some defendants are facing sentences of between twenty-five and 100 years in prison without parole.

...Throughout the following weekend, Jena was engulfed by a wave of racially tinged violence.
· In one incident, a black student was assaulted by a white adult as he entered a predominantly white partly held at the Fair Barn (a large metal building reserved for social events). After being struck in the face without warning, the young black student was assaulted by white students wielding beer bottles and was punched and kicked before adults broke up the fight. It has been reported that the white assailant who threw the first punch was subsequently charged with simple battery (a misdemeanor), but there is no documentary evidence that anyone was charged.

Meanwhile, apparently, on the way to meet me for a drink in our neighborhood last night, my friend passed a homeless guy who'd died in the street, being taken up by the police and so forth.

On the way home, we passed two more homeless folks in sleeping bags, parked in front of the (locked) church.

Just par for the course, really; or getting to be, I don't recall that being so true in -this- neighborhood, but what the hell, it's not like there was an invisible Barrier separating this neighborhood from all the other ones.

But yeah, "what can you do." Of course.

But:

[Selling the Seekrits of one possibly toxic-sludge producing corporate mega giant to another for personal profit] is the kind of offence that cannot be tolerated in our society.

Well, I always did wonder what sort of thing we -didn't- tolerate in this society.

Now I know.

"Support our troops." Guess who really doesn't?

Via Vortex(t), this Krugman article on the Walter Reed scandal:

When Salon, the online magazine, reported on mistreatment of veterans at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center two years ago, officials simply denied that there were any problems. And they initially tried to brush off last month's expose in The Washington Post. But this time, with President Bush's approval at 29 percent, Democrats in control of Congress, and Donald Rumsfeld no longer defense secretary — Robert Gates, his successor, appears genuinely distressed at the situation — the whitewash didn't stick.

Yet even now it's not clear whether the public will be told the full story, which is that the horrors of Walter Reed's outpatient unit are no aberration. For all its cries of "support the troops," the Bush administration has treated veterans' medical care the same way it treats everything else: nickel-and-diming the needy, protecting the incompetent, and privatizing everything it can.

Annette McLeod, wife of injured U.S. soldier Cpl. Wendell McLoud, wipes her tears Monday as she talks about the treatment her husband recieved at Walter Reed Medical Center after he was injured in Iraq, during testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's national security panel. Looking on are Spc. Jeremy Duncan of the U.S. Army, right, and Staff Sgt. John Daniel Shannon. Both were injured in Iraq and testified before the committee.

What makes this a particular shame is that in the Clinton years, veterans' health care — like the Federal Emergency Management Agency — became a shining example of how good leadership can revitalize a troubled government program. By the early years of this decade, the Veterans Health Administration was, by many measures, providing the highest-quality health care in America. (It probably still is: Walter Reed is a military facility, not run by the VHA.)

But as with FEMA, the Bush administration has done all it can to undermine that achievement. And the Walter Reed scandal is another Hurricane Katrina: the moment when the administration's misgovernment became obvious to everyone.

The problem starts with money. The administration uses carefully cooked numbers to pretend that it has been generous to veterans, but the historical data contained in its own budget for fiscal 2008 tell the true story. The quagmire in Iraq has vastly increased the demands on the Veterans Administration, yet since 2001 federal outlays for veterans' medical care have actually lagged behind overall national health spending.

To save money, the administration has been charging veterans for many formerly free services. For example, in 2005, Salon reported that some Walter Reed patients were forced to pay hundreds of dollars each month for their meals.

More important, the administration has broken longstanding promises of lifetime health care to those who defend our nation. Two months before the invasion of Iraq, the VHA, which previously offered care to all veterans, introduced severe new restrictions on who is entitled to enroll in its health care system. As the agency's Web site helpfully explains, veterans whose income exceeds as little as $27,790 a year, and who lack "special eligibilities such as a compensable service connected condition or recent combat service," will be turned away.

So when you hear stories of veterans who spend months or years fighting to get the care they deserve, trying to prove that their injuries are service-related, remember this: all this red tape was created not by the inherent inefficiency of government bureaucracy, but by the Bush administration's penny-pinching.

But money is only part of the problem...

A Time magazine op-ed elaborates:

We used to get chocolate milk delivered to our beds. The amputees of Walter Reed Army Medical Center grew accustomed to first-class service. "The Ritz-Carlton is where you want to go, not Motel 6," the head nurse of Ward 57 told her staff after the Iraq war began in 2003. "That's how I want all my patients treated."

It was the kind of courtesy that was apparently reserved for such overnight guests. A recent Washington Post exposé revealed that some wounded soldiers were placed in outpatient facilities plagued by mice, mildew and mismanagement. It's a shocking account, and not only for ordinary Americans who know Walter Reed by its spit-shine, high-tech image. An embedded TIME reporter who lost a hand in a grenade attack, I was treated at the hospital as a patient from Dec. 16, 2003, to Jan. 8, 2004. From my home in Washington, I returned regularly as an outpatient over the next 18 months for therapy and prosthesis training...

...We expect the best for our wounded. They occupy a special place in the national consciousness. No matter what most Americans think of President Bush's policies, we agree to put the interests of injured soldiers first. It wasn't that way for Vietnam vets, who were scorned and warehoused in decrepit VA hospitals--a mistake Americans don't want repeated. Some of us may feel guilty now for cheering on the invasion only to later lose faith in the war, leaving the troops to deal with the calamitous aftermath. Others of us no doubt feel indebted to a generation of warriors who have volunteered to serve, sparing the rest of us from duty.

And Americans believed Walter Reed helped make good on their IOU. My fellow amputees on Ward 57 knew that if you had to lose a limb, you were in the right place, a citadel of excellence where President Eisenhower and generals from Pershing to MacArthur went to die. Even during this war, the hospital seemed to symbolize the one thing going right for the Army--dramatically improved odds of surviving serious injury and of restoring function among the survivors. Today's soldiers may not be able to stop roadside bombs from blowing off their limbs, but they'll walk out of Walter Reed with bionic arms and legs.

Now we know that problems arose when they walked into the outpatient world. The buddies I made left for Mologne House, on Walter Reed's grounds, which is run like a fine hotel. But as the number of casualties grew in 2005, so did the number released from inpatient wards to other barracks on the 113-acre campus....

as does another op-ed at WaPo

The government is investigating. It investigated the systematic atrocities at Abu Ghraib, too, and the only soldiers prosecuted were enlisted. Early on in the Walter Reed scandal, Army Secretary Francis Harvey blamed negligence on the enlisted, saying: "We had some NCOs who weren't doing their job, period." So it's hard for a lot of veterans to expect that an investigation will ask about the possibility that a simple truth came into play: Officers running the hospital may have ignored the squalor their troops were living in because they believed from long experience that they could.

It turns out that this is one of the rare times they couldn't.

They've stirred up outrage so huge that Harvey and the commanding general of Walter Reed have been fired. Not prosecuted, but fired.

I've always justified the privileges given to officers on the grounds of their greater education, leadership responsibility, management skills and executive potential. I also know the dangers of fraternization -- it's hard for officers to be taken seriously if they drink, play cards and shower with people who must instantly obey their orders whether they like them or not.

Hence the careful separation of various levels of rank, both enlisted and officer. This calibrated meting out of privilege also serves to remind all ranks of their status in the military hierarchy. It keeps you in your place. Segregation is everywhere: bathrooms, dining rooms, social clubs, sleeping quarters.

When you're enlisted, you accept these inequities. They make sense. You also have no choice. But you can't ignore the ugly, feudal arrogance that they foster. Power does tend to corrupt.

It's like what Sheriff Bat Masterson is quoted as saying about the rich and the poor: Everybody gets the same amount of ice -- the rich get theirs in the summer and the poor get theirs in the winter. As an enlisted Marine in the Vietnam era, I heard a second lieutenant in his early 20s bark "C'mere, boy" at a sergeant major in his 40s, a man who had served in two wars. I saw an officer solve a shipboard plumbing problem by ordering enlisted men to pick up human feces with their bare hands...

and another at Meadville Tribune:

While making sure his buddies in the top income brackets got their tax cuts (one-third of President Bush's tax cuts have gone to people with the top 1 percent of income), Bush made up for the income loss by shafting veterans.

...Bush’s last VA health care budget request sought $765 million coming directly from veterans in the form of enrollment fees and prescription drug co-pay increases. The VA is now charging new veterans applying for health care a yearly fee of $250. In another cost cutting measure in 2003, 360,000 veterans (including me) were made ineligible for VA health services.

The GAO estimated that 20 percent of Army Reserve and National Guard personnel have no health insurance. Bush has opposed all attempts to extend full VA services to them, but doesn’t hesitate to send them to Iraq and Afghanistan to face possible death and severe injuries.

Returning soldiers are being denied information dealing with their deserved benefits. Disabled American Veterans (DAV) has been helping U.S. combat casualties since 1920 learn about these benefits and how to apply for them.

DAV Washington Headquarters Executive Director David W. Gorman said the Pentagon is now severely limiting his organization’s contact with hospitalized soldiers.

"The American public would be outraged if these restrictions became public knowledge," he warned in a letter to the Secretary of Defense.

Bush’s proposed budget in 2006 called for the elimination of a program that provides long-term care for veterans and cuts about 5,000 nursing home beds administered by the VA. It would also result in the loss of 3,000 nurses and other medical personnel.

In a 2005 interview with The Wall Street Journal, a Bush flunky with the Pentagon, David Chu, said of the cost of benefits for veterans, “The amounts have gotten to the point where they are hurtful. They are taking away from the nation's ability to defend itself.”

So it’s now unAmerican for veterans to expect help from a once grateful nation?...

.

A writer at Family Security Matters takes a longer view:

The facts are that succeeding administrations and Congresses, Republican and Democrat, consistently have been cutting health care and other quality-of-life support to military members and their families for at least 30 years. So, forgive me if it escapes me why Congress is acting so surprised. Congress got exactly what they always get: just what they paid for.

Since the end of the Viet Nam War, the sections of the military budgets that pay for things like service member and family health care, military family housing, after-service and in-service education assistance, and even military retirement, have been cut and cut. I can’t count the number of military hospitals that have been closed over the past 20 years forcing more and more military families to go off-base for medical support and concentrate what was left into a few impersonal “mega” military health centers.

The military hospitals cut from the inventory are the very same ones that, during a time of war, were to care for the combat wounded. The bottom line is that the government eliminated the military health care system’s ability to flex for war. Congresses and administrations were betting on-the-come that big war with big casualty counts weren’t in our future. Worse than that, military health care, among other direct service member and family-related support, was sold out to pay for outmoded, overpriced military hardware that has been of dubious utility in the current fight...

Bob Herbert editorializes, in sum:

...Have we already forgotten that soldier from the Tennessee National Guard who dared to ask Donald Rumsfeld why the troops had to go scrounging in landfills for “hillbilly armor” — scrap metal — to protect their vehicles from roadside bombs?

Fellow soldiers cheered when the question was raised, and others asked why they were being sent into combat with antiquated equipment.

The defense secretary was not amused. “You go to war with the Army you have,” he callously replied, “not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”

Have we forgotten that while most Americans have sacrificed zilch for this war, the mostly uncomplaining soldiers and marines are being sent into the combat zones for two, three and four tours?

Multiple combat tours are an unconscionable form of Russian roulette that heightens the chances of a warrior being killed or maimed.

In the old days, these troops would have been referred to as cannon fodder. However you want to characterize them now, their casually unfair treatment is an expression of the belief that they are expendable.

The Washington Post has performed an important public service by shining a spotlight on the contemptible treatment that some soldiers received as outpatients at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

The series has already prompted Congressional hearings, and the president climbed off his bicycle long enough to appoint the requisite commission. The question is whether Congress and the public can be roused to take action on behalf of the troops.

It’s not just the indifference and incompetence of the administration that are causing the troops so much unnecessary suffering.

The simple truth is that the Bush crowd, busy trying to hide the costs of the president’s $2 trillion tragedy in Iraq, can’t find the money to pay for all the care that’s needed by the legions of wounded and mentally disabled troops who are coming home.

The outpatient fiasco at Walter Reed is just one aspect of a vast superstructure of suffering.

The military is overextended and falling apart. Equipment worn out or destroyed by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has to be replaced.

The perennial, all-consuming appetite of the military-industrial complex has to be satisfied. And now, here comes that endless line of wounded men and women, some of them disabled for life.

How is all of this to be paid for?

The administration has tried its best to keep the reality of the war away from the public at large, to keep as much of the carnage as possible behind the scenes. No pictures of the coffins coming home. Limited media access to Walter Reed.

That protective curtain needs to be stripped away, exposing the enormity of this catastrophe for all to see.

I remember walking the quiet, manicured grounds of Walter Reed on an unauthorized visit and seeing the young men and women moving about in wheelchairs or on crutches. Some were missing two and three limbs. All had suffered grievously.

There is something profoundly evil about a country encouraging young men and women to go off and fight its wars and then shortchanging them on medical care and other forms of assistance when they come back with wounds that will haunt them forever.

Btw, I share Victoria's take on this wedding.

...will always be with us. --Wait, who's "us," again?

Over at Ilyka Damen's, GenniMcmahon tackles another mammoth in the parlor:

I recall being maybe 8 years old and standing in line at the grocery store with my mother. A woman in front of us was paying for her groceries with a combination of personal check and food stamps. My mother hissed to me, “LOOK at that. She’s wearing a leather jacket and has PICTURES on her CHECKS! Maybe she could find some ways to save some money!” Even at that age, I remember thinking something like, “Well, maybe her husband got hurt or sick and can’t work.”

Setting aside the whole jackpot that was my assumption that the husband was the wage earner; I revisited that conversation every time I, as a food stamps and WIC recipient, felt the people in line behind me analyzing my every purchase and deciding if I was spending their tax dollars appropriately (I wasn’t). I was raised in the mid to upper-middle class by blue collar parents who both earned college degrees during the time I was in high school and college. I had no experience with poverty beyond the typical cultural indoctrination that poor people are poor because they deserve to be. Yet, at the age of 23, I often sat at my parents’ dinner parties, listening to their friends complain about how irresponsible the poor were in spending the tax dollars given them by the system. It was at that point that I learned that it is as difficult to be a “good” poor person as it is to be a “good” woman.

I learned that if poor kids were dirty and unkempt, they and their mother were contemptible. I learned that if poor kids were clean and well dressed (which mine always were), their mother was obviously cheating the system (hello, leather jacket and printed checks). I learned that if I took my kids to the doctor frequently, it was because I had Medicaid and was abusing the system. If I didn't take the kids to the doctor frequently, I was ignorant and a lousy parent. I learned that if poor women were minorities, they were lazy and stupid and opened their legs to any man who came by so they could get an extra $50 a month from the system. I learned that as a poor white woman, I was obviously a slut, and possibly a drug user who had thrown away her privilege and advantages. In other words, it was always the fault of the poor women that they were poor. The men were entirely invisible, as if maybe I and my gang of poor women had found the babies under rocks and just wouldn’t stop bringing them home.

The only reason that I am not still in the system was that I was not raised in the grinding desolation of generational poverty, so I had the tools to work my way out. I was well educated, and went back to school. Oh, and I got remarried, a solution not without pitfalls. This was not, however, because I was better than anyone else; it was because I had more information and privilege than my peers in poverty. But, my solutions came about because I was not typical of the welfare-mother population...

(more, go read)

just a small slice

On the way back, I stop at the drycleaners. The couple who run the tiny shop are elderly; the man moves slowly. It's okay, I can wait. I'm not in a hurry.

On the whole, this isn't a great neighborhood for being in a hurry. As Time Out noted recently in a profile on exotically lumpen but convenient (and Affordable!) Queens, this neighborhood is, well, not glamorous, and probably won't be anytime soon, if ever. "Solidly blue collar," i think were the words, with a sprinkling of young professionals and artists who appreciate the quick commute to Manhattan.

(Clearly the author of the TONY profile on this neighborhood didn't find much else to appreciate, other than the general neighborhoodliness of it all, a couple of rather desolate Irish pubs, and the convenience of all the drugstores; and you know what? That's totally fine with me. Let someone else write about the attractive and spacious if not terrifically well-kept up pre-war buildings, and their history as "the maternity ward of Greenwich Village;" the trees, legacy of that older socialistic attempt to build "gardens" for urban dwellers; the Romanian and Turkish and Irish grocery stores; the theatre that puts on Spanish-language plays and flamenco and tango and traditional Mexican dance performances; the rather nice little French bakery just up the road; and of course the restaurant at the corner of my block, which -was- profiled in TONY but for whatever reason didn't make this author's radar. Go away, Time Out; go discover somewhere else, why dontcha).

For the most part, the other, non-commuting, non white-collar/artists are older, yes. My neighbor, for instance, the one who stands and waits, is--how old? Old enough to have been born here and not have any official documentation--no birth certificate, no nothin'. Apparently this is causing him some tsuris, I learned last I spoke to him--since his brother died, he's been trying to get his affairs in order. We were having a pleasant chat, me commiserating about the assiness of bureaucracies (and, unspoken, his general aloneness, how hard it must be for him); until he lowered his voice, took on a harder edge than I'd yet seen from him and said:

"Lemme tell you something, sweetheart--there's nothing for Americans anymore. These immigrants--"

I cut him off, politely but firmly. So let him think that these immigrants have a way easier time getting documentation and sustenance than fellas like him, what were born here. -I- don't need to hear any more. Mostly because, I don't want to start thinking of my kindly, lonely neighbor in that less pleasant light.

Here at the drycleaners, they're playing a tape in the background: not music, but an oddly formal set of English lessons.

"Number 23. I have only travelled West as far as Chicago."

"Number 24. She has been working hard."

Watching this elderly Asian-derived couple, I wonder just how easy it's been for them; if they have documentation at all. They probably do. A lot of people around here don't. They just...manage.

Like the kid who lugged four heavy Fresh Direct boxes up four flights of stairs earlier, God love him, I thought he was going to have a heart attack he was panting so hard; of course they hadn't fixed the elevator yet, they said they would have it done by last night and of course they didn't, the fuckers. Still, as my neighbor is wont to say, "I can't complain." I could be that kid, after all. Or, well; something. Someone.

"Number 26. They have been working hard."

"Number 27. They -had- been working hard."

There seems to be a theme, here.

The owner brings me my mended sweaters, we exchange wordless smiles. I pay him and turn to go. The bland male voice continues:

"Number 28. John has worked hard all his life. He is still alive."

I pause with my hand on the door, at the slight oddness of it. Sure enough:

"Number 29. John has worked hard all his life. He is dead."

Math's not THAT hard, is it?

Let's not go shopping!

And now, for something completely different: the wealth gap.



He steals from the poor...and gives to the rich...Stupid bitch!...

*****

And now:

Progressive Gold reminds me of a post I'd been wanting to make, with this Scotsman article:


TWO per cent of adults on the planet command more than half of the world's wealth, while the bottom 50 per cent possesses just 1 per cent, according to comprehensive new research.

While income is distributed unequally across the globe, the geographical spread of wealth - which includes property and financial assets - is even more skewed, the study by the World Institute for Development Economics Research of the UN University showed.

"Wealth is heavily concentrated in North America, Europe and high-income Asia- Pacific countries. People in these countries collectively hold almost 90 per cent of total world wealth," the survey said.

The Helsinki-based institute said this was the first global research on the topic, for which there are only limited data. The study is based on figures from 2000. According to the report "the same degree of inequality would be obtained if one person in a group of ten takes 99 per cent of the pie and the other nine share the remaining 1 per cent.

...The two most asset-rich countries are Japan and the United States. In the US, average wealth amounted to £72,800 per person in the year 2000, and £91,500 in Japan.

In India, the figure was just £560 and in Indonesia, per capita wealth was £710.

Even among high-income nations, the amounts vary, from £18,700 per person for New Zealand and £35,390 for Denmark to £64,200 for Britain.

Although North America has only 6 per cent of the world's adult population, it accounts for 34 per cent of household wealth."


If you're reading this and saying, well, shit, I live in North America/Britain/wherever and i don't -feel- rich, you might be right:

Still, many in the wealthy West are house-poor, with assets well below this number due to mortgages and other debt.

"Many people in high-income countries have negative net worth and - somewhat paradoxically - are among the poorest people in the world in terms of household wealth," the report said.

*****

So, this probably isn't news, right? I mean, we've all heard of the "First World, "Third World," right?

What about the news that this trend has actually been getting worse, not better, over the last few decades?

And that it's not just about one country's wealth versus another's; it's about a HUGE amount of wealth becoming increasingly concentrated in a very few individuals' hands?

From the Global Policy Forum:

Let us take some accepted, indeed indisputable, facts. One, the combined wealth of the world’s three richest people is greater than the total gross domestic product of the 48 poorest countries.


I'm going to just pause and let that one sink in before going on. I don't know about y'all, numbers and statistics and so forth tend to make me glaze over; but this one, well,


Let us take some accepted, indeed indisputable, facts. One, the combined wealth of the world’s three richest people is greater than the total gross domestic product of the 48 poorest countries.


Okay? Okay. Moving on:


Two, in 1960, the average income of the richest 20 per cent of the world’s population was 30 times higher than that of the poorest 20 per cent. By 1995, this had become 82 times greater (United Nations Development Programme Report 1998). Three, in 1970, the gap between the per capita GDP of the richest country, the United States of America ($5070) and of the poorest, Bangladesh ($57) was 88:1. In 2000, the gap between the richest, Luxembourg ($45,917) and the poorest, Guinea Bissau ($161) was 267:1.


That article goes on to lay out the most common responses to these figures, by what they term "neoliberals," i.e. defenders of the current economic model: "growth," "free trade," "globalization," deregulation, that sort of thing, one presumes. Apaprently they boil down to, "well, you have to break eggs to make an omelette" and "lies, damned lies and statistics." (My own somewhat flip reading: read the article for their own words and citations).

*****

But so okay; maybe at this point you're thinking, well, the entire world, that's a bit abstract; global village, schmobal village, I live -here.-

Well, let's assume for now "here" is the U.S., as it is for me and it is for a goodly chunk of y'all reading me here, based on my stats (more numbers!), if obviously not all of y'all.

So, here we go.

From United for a Fair Economy: this is a chart roughly breaking down the rise of income for Americans, divided by relative wealth into five chunks, (with an extra category for the top 5%; you'll see why in a minute) from bottom to top, during the "boom years," the "wonder years," 1947-1979.




As you can see, here in fact, at least within the bounds of this country, it probably is as fair as it ever is to have said that the "rising tide lifted all boats." In fact, the relative income of the bottom 20% rises by more than does the top 20%. (by 116% and 99%, respectively). And within that top 20% sector, the wealthiest 5% income rises by--percentage-wise, you understand, they're still the "wealthiest 5%"--even less, but still a healthy 86% increase, overall. Okay.

Now, this is the chart they have for 1979-2001: (yes, this is including the golden Clinton years, it would seem):



So, bottom quintile (that's a great word, isn't it? "quintile") income rose in those 22 years by...3%.

Wealthiest 20% of the U.S. pop's income rose by...53%.

And the richest 5% of the population's income increased by...81%.

Oh, apparently this is before taxes. After taxes, it breaks down like this:




So, relatively speaking, the bottom 20% does a little better than before: 9%. On the other hand, the top 20% makes out at a 68% increase, over the years.

And the very richest 1% sees an increase of income of 201%, from 1979-2001.

Now, "income," (what you earn) as we know, is not synonymous with "wealth" (what you have).

Here's the chart for how that breaks down as of 2001, mkay:



Yes, you're reading that right, assuming I am and you're reading it as I'm reading it: the wealthiest 1% of the U.S. population--so, what, about 3 million people or so?--between them, own just about exactly one third of ALL the "wealth" in the country, as estimated by and how whoever estimates such things (approximately $43 trillion dollars).

And, while this particular chart doesn't say so, I am willing to bet--and will back this up, later, if i find the stats--that of that 1%, a much much small percentage owns a relative even huger chunk of that. Without the actual figures, I won't swear that the wealthiest .1 or .01% of the population own more than even the rest of that top 1% put together, but it wouldn't surprise me either.

also remembering, again:

Let us take some accepted, indeed indisputable, facts. One, the combined wealth of the world’s three richest people is greater than the total gross domestic product of the 48 poorest countries.

So. Of the remaining 2/3 of the wealth--money, "goods," property, stock, what have you--of the U.S., according to the above chart, HALF the country--the poorer half, natch--has to divide a mere 2.8% between them. So that's, what, 150 million people, give or take? and 3% of 43 trillion bucks...christ, I don't know. All I do know is: it's a lot a LOT less than what the richest 3 million or so own all by theyselves.

(of course, that is slightly better, percentage-wise, than the stats for the ENTIRE WORLD, as we've seen; in which half the world (i.e., what, 3-4 billion people?) share between them 1% of all the wealth in the world.

And then, the so-called middle class--the next 40%, so, you know, of the people who aren't in the bottom half, all but the top richest 10% of the population--they get a bit more than a quarter more, of the wealth, between them.

The remaining chunk is divvied up between what i guess would now be the, well, I don't know how you'd "class" people according to this chart; my guess is that a lot of 'em, this top-10-except-for-the-very-richest-1% of the population, still think of themselves of middle class--as do a lot of people in that lower 50%, because everyone in the U.S. is middle class, you know? There is no such thing as "class"--

--anyway, that lot, the wealthiest-except-for-the-very-tiptop, shares somewhat more than another third of the country's entire wealth between them. Surprise surprise, the richer half of -that- strata has more than twice as much as the rest of 'em.

(Speaking of pre-1980's; anyone else remember this bit from Sesame Street? "Let's share a banana, Ernie; I'll have the banana, and you get the peel!" perhaps i misremember; i was but a babe. anyway Bert is Evil, as everyone knows).

*****

Okay, so, but what does that mean in terms of actual dollars, currently?

Wiki breaks down thusly:



As you can see, a goodly chunk of folk making under 20K a year; another goodly chunk on top of it making under, oh, what, 40k?


*****

So, but, okay: did we indeed "make the pie higher," since oh say 2001 or so? You do hear tell that the economy is "recovering," here and there, no?


Well, according to the Economic Policy Institute:

1. Profits are up, but the wages and incomes of average Americans are down.

Inflation-adjusted hourly and weekly wages are below where they were at the start of the recovery in November 2001. Yet, productivity—the growth of the economic pie—is up by 14.7%.1 (



...Consequently, median household income (inflation-adjusted) has fallen five years in a row and was 4% lower in 2004 than in 1999, falling from $46,129 to $44,389.

2. More and more people are deeper and deeper in debt.

The indebtedness of U.S. households, after adjusting for inflation, has risen 42.0% over the last five years.
The level of debt as a percent of after-tax income is the highest ever measured in our history. Mortgage and consumer debt is now 120% of after-tax income, more than twice the level of 30 years ago.
The debt-service ratio (the percent of after-tax income that goes to pay off debts) is at an all-time high of 13.9%.
The personal savings rate is negative for the first time since the Depression [emphasis mine]

3. Job creation has not kept up with population growth, and the employment rate has fallen sharply.

The United States has only 1.9% more jobs today than in March 2001 (the start of the last recession).

Well, but, see, there is growth! Growth is good, right?


Private sector jobs are up only 1.5%. At this stage of previous business cycles, jobs had grown by an average of 8.8% and never less than 6.0%.

...oh.

The unemployment rate is relatively low at 4.6%.

...yay?

But the percent of the population that has a job has never recovered since the recession and is still 1.3% lower than in March 2001. If the employment rate had returned to pre-recession levels, almost 4 million more people would be employed.

and, I don't have the cite here, but there've been studies that indicate the reason unemployment is "down" is because they're simply going by the people applying for unemployment, on the welfare rolls, on record as actively looking for work, you know. It doesn't take in that in fact a lot have people have simply given up. or fallen, and can't get up.

And, poverty's on the rise, especially child poverty, rising health costs...you get the picture.

Oh, and it also doesn't talk about how many of those new jobs are in the "service economy;" and how many of those are at minimum wage. Yeah, let's talk about minimum wage for a sec, shall we?

From the Hartford Courant:

On Saturday, we broke the record for the longest period without an increase in the minimum wage since it was established in 1938. The prior record of nine years and three months lasted from Jan. 1, 1981, until the minimum wage hike on April 1, 1990.

That current federal minimum wage, in case you didn't know, is $5.15 an hour. And has been since 1997.

Some state laws have an increase beyond that--I think here in NYC it was 6 bucks, may've been raised recently; on the other hand, and this is going to have to be another one where i don't currently have the cite, but in just a bunch of states, don't know if you knew, they can pay you less if your primary income is deduced to be via tips. As in, waitroning, etc. Two something an hour, was it? I do need to look that one up. I remember that, because there was something or other about how someone recently was trying to push a federal bill to override the few states that had provisos that insisted on the full minimum wage for everyone, not just those who get to collect coins and singles from the ashtray. Guess which party. Hint: it's the same one that, (via the same Courant article), wanted to simply do away with the whole thing:

Murray Weidenbaum, chairman of President Reagan's first Council of Economic Advisers, has acknowledged they wanted to eliminate the minimum wage. But as The Wall Street Journal reported, "Because that would have been such a `painful political process,' Mr. Weidenbaum says that he and other officials were content to let inflation turn the minimum wage into `an effective dead letter.'"

Today's minimum wage is less than the 1950 minimum of $6.28 (adjusted for inflation), according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator. It takes nearly two workers to match the $9.28 buying power of one minimum wage worker in 1968.

So what that means is,

A full-time worker at minimum wage makes just $10,712 a year - less than $900 a month to cover housing, food, health care, transportation and other expenses. Today, family health coverage costs more than a minimum wage worker's entire annual income.

The minimum wage sets the wage floor. As the floor has sunk below poverty levels, millions of workers find themselves with paychecks above the minimum, but not above poverty wages.

Which means:

CEOs have enriched themselves and their families for generations to come while workers struggle to support themselves and their children. The highest paid CEO in 1968 made as much as 127 average workers and 239 minimum wage workers. The highest paid CEO in 2005 made as much as 7,443 average workers and 23,282 minimum wage workers.

Specifically,

...average CEO pay in Business Week's survey was $7.4 million. It would take 241 years for an average worker paid $30,722 to make that amount.

Since 1980, average CEO pay has skyrocketed 442 percent, adjusting for inflation, from $1,364,524. Average worker pay has inched up just 1.6 percent from an inflation-adjusted $30,244 in 1980.

...If average worker pay had grown at the CEO pace, it would be $164,018.



And while, as noted way the hell back up there, this growing disparity is a global problem, it is also true that the U.S. is even worse about this growing gap than other "First World" countries in many regards. From the above article,

According to the Towers Perrin worldwide pay report, U.S. CEOs are paid more than twice as much as Canadian CEOs, nearly three times as much as British CEOs, and four times as much as German CEOs.

and from the Courant article:

Ireland's minimum wage is $10 and England's is more than $10, calculated in U.S. dollars.

Now, (also from the Courant)

Democrats promise to pass a minimum wage hike in the first 100 hours of the new Congress. The long-delayed Fair Minimum Wage Act would raise the minimum wage in three steps to $5.85, 60 days after passage, $6.55 one year later in 2008, and $7.25 one year later in 2009.

Which, yay, okay. The AFL-CIO has a calculator you can use to work out how far you'd get on the minimum wage, based on how many hours you work and your monthly costs (it's a good exercise for personal budgeting, anyway if you don't already do such things). So now, i guess, instead of plugging in $5.15 an hour, you can plug in $7.25 an hour. In two years, I mean.

These are steps in the right direction for workers for whom every dollar counts in the struggle to make ends meet. But workers should not have to wait until 2009 for a $7.25 minimum wage that only partly restores buying power lost since 1968.


As they (Courant again) say.

And that's not even getting to the crap about, o, transnational corporations, effects of globalization...

*****

I'll be honest. I had a bunch of reasons for not tackling this shit before; dunno if they're the same as y'all's or not. Well, one, I suppose relatively speaking I am comfortable enough to sort-of pretend this isn't actually happening (although denial works in mysterious ways, doesn't it); certainly more so if you factor in my family background, who by now i expect is in, oh, i don't know what percentile, but i suspect it's up there. Not in the supra-wealthy micro-fraction percentile, no, but...and especially globally...so.

And, gender stereotypes or not, I've always had issues with numbers, personally. I wasn't kidding: math and anything related literally gives me nightmares. (I dread my upcoming statistics class).

And let's face it: this shit's boring compared to, oh I don't know, blowjobs.

And yet.

Somehow, you know, call it a hunch; i have the feeling that even if I, we, most, all? of us? don't start concerning ourselves with this shit pretty soon?

It's gonna concern itself with us.

I mean, the rest of us; the ones who aren't already reading this and going, um, HELLO? film at eleven?

And, I suspect, even those of us who aren't currently calculating whether to buy soap or toilet paper (because it can't be both), seriously freaked out about keeping the lights on, food on the table...it takes its toll, in ways probably not thought about at the conscious level. This Alternet article puts it well, I think:

Contra the right's liberal media conspiracy theories, the major media from across the spectrum are reporting the good news about America's booming economy with zeal.

That endless drumbeat comes with social costs.

First, it fuels the bubble mentality. If the economy's going gangbusters but you're struggling, of course you want to get in on the latest billionaire-creating wealth machine. That mentality infected anyone who bought tech stocks in 1999 hoping to become a "dot-com millionaire," just as it has them running around today buying houses at any price with the expectation that they'll get a 10 percent annual return. Alan Greenspan characterized the mindset as being one of "irrational exuberance." But what could be more rational than piling onto the latest bandwagon after watching a half-hour of CNBC's economic triumphalism?

Less easy to quantify is the psychic cost this has on us. The message we get all the time is that our unrivalled, dynamic economy affords opportunities for us all. So, if you're one of the majority who is not doing so well, it must be your fault. It is you, and not any external economic factor, that is keeping you from profiting from the Ownership Society. You are a loser.

...Despite our great wealth, we're an unhappy people; we lead the world in mental health problems year in and year out. It's impossible to know to what degree that results from failing to live up to the economic expectations drummed into our heads every time we hear about the wonders of the American economy. But the message to all those families struggling to get by should be: You're not alone, it's all of us.

*****

Dennis Moore:
What did you sing?

Singers:
(speaking)
We sang... he steals from the poor and gives to the rich.

Dennis Moore:
Wait a tic... blimey, this redistribution of wealth is trickier than I thought.