What Never Can Be

The death of Fred Thompson as noted in Morning Edition Monday political punditry—

ROBERTS: Well, of course everybody thought that his popularity on TV and in the movies would propel him into the presidency. And he declared for president, as we've just heard, in 2008. But it fizzled pretty quickly. And, you know, Renee, that happens every cycle. There's somebody who everyone thinks is the natural - think John Glenn for instance. And then they fizzle out. This year is a different year. His TV appearances seem to be - still be helping Donald Trump. We'll see what happens in the long run.

"Everyone thought...": the wisdom of Cokie can always be relied upon. Since there's nothing like a fake homespun ham actor to inspire a pundit crush or to be a ready fit for what The Heartland is supposed to buy.

On the other hand, here's a great catch of a reality check from Steve M—

You probably lost track of Thompson after his 2008 presidential run, but he kept himself active on social media nearly to the end -- and he was really kind of a jerk until the end. His specialty was the wingnut one-liner ...

...this, about Richard Branson, was his final tweet:

Branson wants "world powered by sun, powered by wind." Ohhh...like in the Dark Ages when everyone used sailing ships and clotheslines...

...

They say that a near-death experience can give a person a perspective on what really matters in life, that coming face-to-face with one's own mortality can make certain squabbles in one's life seem small and petty. Thompson got a cancer diagnosis in 2004. I don't know when he became aware of the recurrence that killed him. But it seems as if none of this ever made him think, "Y'know, I want to do more with my remaining days than script an ideological social-media Hee-Haw." He did this almost until the end.

They Also Serve, Who Shill

In what's now post-massacre routine, the Noise Machine went into high gear, reassuring the audience that mass murder should be blamed on anything other than guns. And as it suggests enemies to blame, this encouragement for paranoids to stock up an ammo is less than subtle.

With the lunatic segment so well served, why shouldn't the industry try some seemingly gentler PR—say, on the NPR fans? Ergo: Malcolm Gladwell, on today's Morning Edition.

Here, Gladwell's spuriously "scientific" talking point was that—

The first person who throws the rock is a lot more radical than a hundredth person. By the time the riot has attracted a hundred people, you don't have to be nearly as much of a daredevil or a hothead or committed or any of those things to want to engage in a riot.

...

The first half-dozen or so cases [of school shooters, beginning in the 1990s] are kids who are profoundly psychotic, deeply traumatized or, in the case of someone like Eric Harris at Columbine, are kind of textbook psychopaths. Now 20 years into the epidemic, the kinds of boys - it's all boys - who are attracted to this are no longer as profoundly troubled or - you know, as the early ones were. We're replicating Granovetter's theory of riots. The hundredth person is not nearly as much of a committed radical as the first person in. And that's a terrifying conclusion if that's what we're seeing.

I found the segment incoherent, but Gladwell was touting his latest piece in the New Yorker, where he no doubt aimed to overwhelm objection by expounding on the theme at more stupefying length.

Gladwell is so entrenched, by Establishment embrace and by his book sales, that it's hard to find much public critique. There's this, which notes that social scientists have objected to Gladwell's use of their work, complaining of "the writer's penchant for reporting correlations as causations."

Certainly, it could be at most correlative for the psychology of people joining a riot in progress to have any relation to the mental workings of an emotionally isolated person who decides to enter a school and start firing. But, it serves as a change of subject: from guns, to something abstract and purportedly Scientific.

If, for that matter, social science was anything to Gladwell other than material to mine for great profit, he could examine what social context might tend to produce these enraged loners. And, perhaps even look at Family; now that would seem a good topic of inquiry, considering some of the parents who have encouraged their sons' "interests." In the case of this most recent massacre—

According to multiple reports, the shooter's mother boasted online about her arsenal and feared that gun ownership would soon be restricted.

"When the mood strikes," Harper reportedly wrote on Facebook, "I sling an AR, Tek-9 or AK over my shoulder, or holster a Glock 21 (not 22), or one of my other handguns, like the Sig Sauer P226, and walk out the door." "Shotguns," she said, "are a little too cumbersome to open carry."

According to officials, the Harper family moved from Torrance, California to Winchester, Oregon, in 2013. "I moved from So. Calif. to Oregon, from Southern Crime-a-mania to open carry," Harper noted in that same Facebook post advocating for open carry laws.

Harper, a registered nurse who shared an apartment with her son, spoke "openly about her love of guns," according to one of her patients.

But to examine this sort of thing is certainly not what Gladwell is about. The most thorough critique of his career has been Yasha Levine's. Unsurprisingly, Gladwell got his start in a right-wing pundit mill, from whence he was thrust into prominence. Along the way up, says Levine—

... Gladwell has shilled for Big Tobacco, Pharma and defended Enron-style financial fraud, all while earning hundreds of thousands of dollars as a corporate speaker, sometimes from the same companies and industries that he covers as a journalist.

Malcolm Gladwell is a one-man branding and distribution pipeline for valuable corporate messages, constructed on the public's gullibility in trusting his probity and intellectual honesty in the pages of America's most important weekly magazine, The New Yorker, and other highly prominent media outlets.

Presumably, the New Yorker, NPR, and Gladwell's many other forums will be a source of new PR work, on behalf of yet another industry with no regard for human life.

Change Of Subject

This morning: NPR fluff about "'Jebcito,'" who "once mistakenly listed his ethnicity as Hispanic on a Florida voter registration form," and "once called himself the first 'Latino governor of the state of Florida.'" That story followed by furor over racial self-identification (of someone not a member of the Bush family): Rachel Dolezal's "passing" as black.

Dolezal is hardly the first: there is a long history of "passing" on different sides of the supposed divide. In a scholarly take here, Daniel J. Sharfstein notes such cases as the Nazi Party secretary and KKK Grand Dragon who had been a Jew, and the former speechwriter to George Wallace who wrote a best-selling "memoir" in the guise of being Native American.

Scharfstein also cites older history: that of the first free families of color and white mothers of black children. Those mothers had to find—

... new ways for their families and themselves to parse slavery, freedom and race, akin to James McBride's account in his memoir, "The Color of Water," of how his mother described her own identity while raising 12 African-American children. When McBride asked her about her parents, she would respond, "God made me." When he asked if she was white, her answer was, "I'm light-skinned."

James McBride's mother is an example Clever Sister brought up a couple days ago;Johnny Otis is another.

Considering Dolezal's multiple and apparently false claims of death threats and harassment, there may be a serious personality disorder involved. But the people it should concern are Dolezal, her family, and her associates. What should have been, at most, a local story in Spokane has been turned into day after day of national headlines.

That it's not simply a local story is no accident—not when it serves to reinforce a worldview of They get special privileges; the NAACP is phony; and the like. Once out, the story was amplified by the immense public shaming platform social media offers.

By now, it's become the perfect narrative for displacing stories that had been getting attention, like armed white cop vs. teenaged black girl clad only in swimwear. And for any attention paid to solid citizen reaction ("the blacks are the ones causing the problems and this 'racial tension.'").

Keep Your Damn Social Democracy To Yourself

The day began with this.

"What was a longshoreman?" ... A verb tense chosen to set the tone of future NPR queries? It may not be long before "What was a union?"; "...a worker?"

Longshoremen are past tense, yet we are told they are powerful. Both are according to Renee Montagne, who also clues us in: they are on the West Coast, so are not the same corrupt East Coast longshoremen we know from "On the Waterfront."

Just a couple of things are off. "On the Waterfront" was fiction, a movie made in 1954 by a director eager to please red hunters. And beyond ominous remarks about a "powerful union," Montagne's piece was free the slightest mention of work conditions, corporate behavior, or any actual issues in the dock shutdowns.

Mercifully, this setup skipped a recent shtick NPR indulges in: introducing "history" by with feature film audio. Or maybe the omission showed some journalistic lines are not to be crossed—after all, "On the Waterfront" was set on the wrong coast.

In any case, the "history" here was superficial background to Montaigne's storyline that dockworkers and their outmoded "union" cost the economy millions a day, and just need to get with it—

MONTAGNE: Well, other unions have realized in this last - certainly this last decade that they needed to give up certain benefits to survive. Have the longshoremen gotten to this point?

Even if some comments to NPR's site challenged the narrative, it was already Mission Accomplished, when the broadcast reached its target audience: white-collars who've had any conception of workplace democracy educated out of them.

Even if there were challengers in online comments, it was Mission Accomplished: NPR reached its target audience of white-collars who have had any conception of workplace democracy educated out of them.

On to the first fully equipped day at my new locale. Buildings in this complex are sparkly glass boxes, full of high design furniture. It's like walking into Scandinavia—just without the social democracy and benefits.

A jam-packed day's festivities began with an early call to assemble, now that two units once separated by several city blocks have been combined into one happy family. Without booking a facility conference room, the only likely space to meet is such that everyone stands in a couple of converging aisles; the awkwardness of this did suit the makeup of the new happy family.

The newly added group's boss, Simone Legree, was ready with a spiel she was eager to get out. To wit: her staff have "strict productivity goals" daily, with ten people to do $7 million annual hospital billing. Staff are allowed two 15-minute breaks and a half hour lunch; they have to account for any other time spent, whereby they haven't met the daily goal. "Don't talk to my people" was her point, which she was in a hurry to make known and publicly rationalized.

Well, the only member of Simone's staff I'm likely to speak to is A. Friend, and I already knew to avoid her desk. A. has been harassed ever since falling into Simone's clutches, several years ago. A. and I are about the same age, but the median age in the unit is 30-ish. Simone's behavior can only come from sheer bias against A.'s age and her dressing plainly (most of the others wear heels and the height of mall fashion). Simone is no younger than A. or me, and in the looks department, she has a particularly pinched and unpleasant face. So for years she's tried to drive out the oldster, the better to surround herself with younger, dressed-to-the-nines women; presumably, their allure is supposed to rub off on her.

In the two days I've been around this group, it's no secret there are favorites. A. tells me she is "written up" if she's seen reading an e-mail from a family member. On the other hand, it's fine that the plastic-looking blonde across the aisle from me takes frequent face and hair touch-up breaks. Blondie also has TV windows open throughout the day.

Our end of the room has windows, which prompts Blondie's announcing to all who pass her desk: "I'm getting plants." Said as if it's an astoundingly brilliant thought, yet in a particular kind of bland tone. It strikes me as sort of a mid-West suburban Queen of England manner, of knowing she can count on people to fall over themselves admiring her least raise of a pinky. Though I may well be over-thinking this: it could be just that the botox keeps her face from moving.

The morning meeting's other main order of bullshit was from the overall manager: "Just because we've moved over here, doesn't mean the dress code has been relaxed. And no matter what you might see other people in the building wear, there are no sneakers." The department has always been thoroughly pretentious about controlling garb for office staff—almost inevitably women, and easily intimidated—and the administrators have no such sway over faculty, lab or IT staff. The real meaning, of course: "just because the bigwigs exiled you out of their sight, don't you peons think you can relax."

A. Friend, who's been unable to wear anything but sneakers, had to speak up here, "Do I need a doctor's note for my plantar fascitis?"

"Yes," said an annoyed manager.

From my side of the work group, She Who Is With Child is always on the lookout for any chance to broadcast the fact—as well as looking for any possible work bandwagon to join. So she jumped in, "Do I need a note if I'm pregnant and my feet are swelling?"

"We'll talk about it later."

Yes, they are hypocrites who play favorites. Their dress code is so meaningful, yet wearing jeans on Fridays is encouraged when the wearers cough up $1 for department fundraising. As the shindig wound down—and for all the "strict productivity goals" determining her staff's use of time—Simone began gushing about how great it is to meet, and that "once we're caught up from the move, I think we should get back to Morning Huddles: they're so useful"

That's a nutshell of my workplace, in all its varieties of sucking, and, sucking up.

Soon after the meeting broke up came a news flash: lunch will be delivered at noon by the department administrator. Huzzah: there was the usual office excitement over free food—which turned out to be platters of craptacular Jimmy John's subs.

It was easy for me to hold out for lunching later on something more palatable. I tried to make myself inconspicuous about the non-eating by talking to A. Friend and sticking to that spot. Until the administrator headed toward us...

Unlike the previous old goat, this guy has an affable manner, and a "Hi, how are you?" for everyone. Along with remarking on the weather, that's as much conversation as I'd ever had with him, though our paths often crossed in the other facility. Now, what he opens with is, "I hear you lost your walk"... I don't know if he'd previously overheard me talking about the office move, or what prompted this.

Whichever, his remark was in a tone not far from "Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah,!" Later, A. agreed that it was extremely weird for him to pounce on me and bring up that subject, and that his tone was pointed.

But while the administrator was in my face, I just said, "Oh well, I guess that would have changed soon, because I have to find another place to live since the stealth sale of the building I've lived in for eight years..." What the hell; I was so pissed off, I blandly brought up the other hostile real estate takeover ruining the year for me. Anyway, he began making sympathetic noises about home moves.

Soon after the administrator had pounced, the department chairman arrived—to be pounced upon himself, by Simone Legree. She began to schmooze mightily with the Great Man; from the corner of my eye, he sure seemed to be looking for an out.

Well, I had one: retreating to my desk, even if the office space was filled with the sounds of Simone's yakking and the GM's humoring her. It went on for some minutes, until I heard, "Oh! You haven't met my staff"; a beeline was then made for the desk of Blondie.

In the course of this venting, I do prefer being vague about where I work. But here I have to say that it is a medical department, which I'll call the Department of Mmm-mmm-ology. The new broom who swept me out of the old location is Doctor Broom, Chairman of the Department of Mmm-Mmmology.

Upon being introduced to him, Blondie said, "Oh, are you a mmm-mmmologist?

My desk is positioned for a perfect view of the good doctor, who was taken aback for the merest fraction of a second. No doubt concluding that you can't expect much from the help, he quickly replied, "Yes, and a practicing one..." He went on to make some shop talk, which I barely follow (and don't expect Blondie does at all).

After the Great Man had finally left the building, Simone came rushing back to Blondie and laughing, "I can't believe you said that to him!"

"Well, things are new to me—I'm trying to learn them."

"Oh, he's just so personable—that's it coming out!"

After more raving about the GM, Simone proceeded to bring her sub-lieutenants to Blondie's desk. It was an actual procession, as one by one they were led over, while Simone guffawed, "I can't believe she said that!... He took it so well!..."

This throughout the afternoon, as Blondie defended herself:

"Well, he saw me and just thought, 'You're so pretty'..."

"Well, what can I say; sometimes the blonde comes out..."

Somehow, this starts to seem like such a good idea...

Full Moon

According to the lunar cycle: just happened, on the 19th.

Judging from behavior: the full moon would seem to be permanent. And this was another routine week—of mass, and other, murders that were not caused by guns. This time around, it's people who hear voices in their heads, or play games with toddlers, that kill people.)

Days later: this.

In the narrative that's been settled, such things just happen: Act of God, Nothing To Be Done, and so on.

For some time, Digby has been doing "Dispatch From Taser Nation" posts. This week's incident: tasering of a deaf 12-year old.

And Pierce last week wrote of "the casual cruelties we no longer notice," from the 107-year old man killed by a SWAT team, to vulnerable elderly losing homes to shady tax lien operators.

No matter how many mass murders or other grotesque events there are, nothing slows the war against the poor.

There's this, from Clever Sister: Michigan lawmakers approve bills for drug testing the unemployed, and requiring community service for anyone receiving public assistance.

Sen. Vincent Gregory, D-Southfield, said it didn't make sense to make someone — such as a single mother, for example — have to pay child care costs because of state-required community service. He offered an amendment — which ultimately failed — that would require the Department of Human Services to pick up child care costs while parents performed community service.

CS adds, "Will kids die when left alone?"

With the right's success at state levels and in controlling the House, eagerness to hurt the poor is in newly high gear. It's an agenda being served by the "balanced" coverage of news like the House's vote to defund food stamps. Digby's rundown of the cruelty and lies, includes Dan Froomkin's noting—

Everyone is concerned when there are a lot of people getting food stamps, but the problem is that they are hungry, not that they are being fed.

The GOP argument boils down to a nonsensical: When people are hungrier, we should feed them less. It shouldn't be treated as if it makes sense. But it was.

As David Atkins goes over the stats—

SNAP provides families with an estimated 22 million children with resources to purchase a nutritionally adequate diet. This represents close to 1 in 3 children (29 percent) in the United States. Almost half of all SNAP recipients are children (47 percent), and an additional 26 percent are adults living with children. ... Forty percent of all SNAP recipients live in households with preschool-age children (ages 4 and below).

Over 70 percent of SNAP benefits go to households with children. In 2011, SNAP provided an estimated $51 billion in benefits to families with children, over half of which went to families with preschool-age children.

And so on. One can only agree with Atkins' conclusion, that—

This is not a rational disagreement about public policy. This is a gulf of basic decency, a demand by fearful people for the sacrifice of innocents to sate a perversely sadistic form of cosmic justice.

Interestingly, most people demanding the starvation of children so that billionaires can buy more yachts call themselves Christian. Perhaps they're reading a Biblical translation that calls for blood sacrifice of innocents so that the rich may enjoy more fruits of Mammon. I missed that part in my copy.

Wednesday morning, I caught this on NPR—

"We should reform the food stamp program so we can get the aid to those who need it most in their hour of need, without the kind of rampant waste and abuse that you see," said Rep. Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas.

It's not clear that waste and abuse really is all that rampant, but when House Republicans talk about the problem, they are most likely thinking of Jason Greenslate.

Greenslate is an unemployed San Diego surfer dude seen in a using his Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP card, to buy sushi and lobster. The story from correspondent John Roberts was reportedly circulated to GOP lawmakers.

The report shows Greenslate heading to the automated checkout counter and paying with his food stamp card. "Two hundred dollars a month, and you just go like, boom," Greenslate says on camera. "Just like that, all paid for by our wonderful tax dollars."

In reality, the vast majority of SNAP recipients either work or are children, disabled or elderly. Greenslate is the exception, rather than the rule. He's been described as the new welfare queen — a caricature used to push welfare reform in the '80s and '90s.

Indeed, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor describes the new House food stamp bill as an extension of welfare reform.

What, instead of a Cadillac-driving welfare queen, the cheat is all of a sudden a white guy? Or is the missing racist bait trumped by California ?

It may just be another example of the laziness granted the propagandists. After all, their base needs no consistency of narrative; Balance will ensure the memes are broadcast to everyone else, and the GOP is once more given cover for its war against the poor.

With the typical SNAP recipient being a working single-mother—employed by Walmart or McDonald's, at pay making her eligible for food stamps—Jason Greenslate is very much an outlier. Yes, NPR noted that, while it dutifully disseminated the "welfare reform" meme. And the Greenslate audio is a more obvious attention-getter than a bunch of boringly real statistics.

The audio is from Fox. I had expected to learn next that Greenslate is on a think tank payroll, but under California rules, he has been an eligible recipient. Media Matters looked at how Fox set this up and inserted it other media before the House vote, and some very knowledgeable readers responded with perspective on who typically receives SNAP. A commenter also linked to the San Diego Union-Tribune's coverage of the local surfer dude story, including remarks by a Greenslate relative (who happens to have written this book).

But never mind the facts: the GOP's white surfer dude story is "out there." Which, in observance of "Cokie's Law," makes it worthy of heavy coverage.

Discursus Interruptus

Reporters' tone was notable in its disappointment: how could the quickly arrested guy turn out to be the wrong one, which forces us to change a story we thought we'd wrapped up? NPR's examples here, here, and here.

The absurdity of the quick arrest that was a leading national story, then turned out to have been wrongly made on the basis of silly Facebook postings, to be followed by undisguised media disappointment is one part of this.

The released arrestee's later interview by said media is something else that has to be heard. The switch of tone from disbelief at the charges, to anticipation of being "famous world-wide," for his lame Elvis impersonation and catch phrase.

What can be said, but, Ricky Bobby: "Shake and Bake!"

Rise and Shine; Destroy Broadcast Device

In a better world, I still might need to wake at 6:20 a.m.

But in that better world, I would not be waking to hear Tina Brown—

... I just thought this interview in Foreign Affairs was absolutely riveting, because it really gives an insight into the clarity of mind - the brilliant organizational, conceptual notion of how to run a war - which is what you get from Stanley McChrystal. And I have to say it also made me feel incredibly regretful that this guy was, you know, hounded from his post by a misdemeanor that was blown up by social media, something we've really seen again with General Allen's exit from commanding NATO.

It's tragic.

I will give her this: she has immense talent for gushing through an over 7-minute segment, without apparent need to draw breath.

The gushing was, in fact, so frenetic—and the combo groan-guffaws bursting from me was so loud—that, until NPR posted a transcript this afternoon, I completely missed catching just what she finds tragic.

Luis Bunuel in My Last Sigh, described how "Dali had an enormous fear of pain and death, yet he once wrote about how titillated he'd been at the sight of a third-class compartment filled with workers who'd been crushed to death in an accident. On the other hand, he claimed to have discovered death the day that Prince Mdivani... was killed in an automobile accident.... For Dali, the death of a prince was a reality and had nothing whatever to do with a carriage full of working-class corpses."

But, back to T.B.—

... people hear most about the targeting cycle, which we called F3EA: Find, Fix, Finish, Exploit and Analyze. You understand who or what is the target, locate it, capture and kill it, or kill it. And you take what intelligence you can from that raid and go back for more.

Target, locate, capture, kill: it also serves as Tina's secret formula for destroying magazines?

A printed transcript does not—cannot—adequately represent the 7+ minutes; the full audio is needed to appreciate Ms. Brown on the "Post September 11 World." A brave world, it truly is, in the carefree tone-deafness our elite feel free to exhibit. But a world not so new, insofar as the opportunities for profit continue to be as unlimited as they have been for years.

"Very necessary and profitable," indeed—

—though I must say, by the standards of The Book of the Courtier, I wonder that Tina would have made the cut during the Renaissance. One suspects she has few of the talents recorded under the heading, BREEF REHERSALL OF THE CHIEFE CONDITIONS AND QUALITIES IN A COURTIER. It's actually a rather long list, and includes the expectation of a courtier "Not to be a babbler... or chatter, nor lavish of his tunge."

The only good thing about the misuse of airtime: the mainly anti-Brown comments on NPR's site. These include some from Guy Montag, who has written quite extensively on McChrystal's role in covering up the death of Pat Tillman.

Brown's mooning over McChrystal, as well as her other military-security-media crushes of the moment, were soon followed by the daily opener to my weekday mornings: The Customer Service Excellence Huddle.This week's theme: Trust.

I know only too well how much I can trust management—to make my life worse.

A mere difference in scale between that small milieu and what we can trust the larger management, and its Tina Browns, to do for us all.

N(ice) P(olite) R(epublicans)

The revolution will not be, etc.—NPR, home of Cokie and the like, axes this host, for the wrong kind of political activity—

The problem, says Simeone, is, "I'm not an NPR journalist. I am not paid by NPR. I don't do news. I don't do analysis. And I have never talked about the occupation movement on the air. I do this entirely in my free time."

...

"I've never hid my views and my opinions have never leeched into what I do on NPR. People can listen to all my shows. When I was talking about 'Tosca,' I could have talked about the relevance today of Cavaradossi, the tenor who is a political prisoner and who is tortured. I didn't mention it. It's a show about opera, for God's sake."

And a freelance web producer of a WNYC show gets the same treatment.

Yes, NPR's coverage continues to comfort the comfortable.

And there are credulous fans who fall for the branding.

Nevertheless, I caught a couple of Morning Edition segments this week where I almost enjoyed the lameness of pandering, considering the way reality is being leaked by other means, these days.

One was from the always irritating Eleanor Beardsley. I've heard her in the past when, her voice full of disdain, she "reports" on stories like a French transit workers' strike that not only shut down Paris—the déclassé unionists temporarily deprived her of her nanny's services!

This week, it was a Wednesday segment about Sarkozy's reaction to the Greek referendum. In her patrician, looking down the nose manner—

...opposition figures in France seemed delighted by news of the referendum, calling it a victory for the people. Desperate to beat Sarkozy in the presidential election next May, they hailed Greek resistance to its European managers.

"They've only been thinking about taking care of the euro and not the Greek people — so they're getting what they paid for," said Jean-Luc Melenchon, head of a coalition of far-left parties.

The far right also spun the news to fit its views.

I don't know the background of the "coalition of far-left parties," but it's is the usual hack punditry that attributes any position to "just politics," while presenting left and right as equally cynical.

On Thursday, there was this: "Harvard Economics Students Protest Perceived Bias." Students walked out on poor Greg Mankiw, former Bush advisor, now advising Romney...

I don't think I imagined an ill-concealed panic in Mankiw's voice, as he raced through his academic name-dropping and his talking points. The latter included the usual "we haven't been producing enough educated people to keep up with the increasing demand for high skilled workers."

So, what are all those unemployed indebted advanced degree holders posting "I am the 99 percent" photos, and camping around the country—chopped liver?

Mankiw claims, amusingly, that "some of the evidence that we've seen suggest that incomes at the top have fallen disproportionately relative to the middle."

Also, that "rising inequality is really a long-term...like a 40-year trend since the 1970s." [Trans: Jimmy Carter's to blame.]

If victories are possible over those who fund the blathering mouthpieces of academia and media, those will be hard-won.

But I think this from Thomas Ferguson, speaking at Occupy Boston, is on the mark—

You are powerfully influencing American politics just by directing attention to the 1% and big money's hold on American politics. It is a message that makes the establishments of both political parties and the mass media tremble, lest it transmit to the rest the citizenry, which is well aware that something is rotten, but not always sure exactly what is causing it.

...in its short existence, Occupy Wall Street has highlighted the problems of money and politics in a way no other force in American society has. You have put your finger on the pivotal issue of our time, which is whether democracy in America can survive.

This Week On NPR: Things I Learned (Or Not)

In a country saturated by Faux News, it's always comforting to know there is a Serious New source a liberal can trust.

WPA/Federal Art Project, Image: Posters for the People

Well, I try to tune it out, except for catching time and weather in the morning. But there are the stories that stand out too much to ignore, and I caught a few this particular week.

Why does this trial balloon make it feel like 2004 all over again?

Oh, it's not that I expect Obama to benefit from this. Not at all, and I somehow think it's other interests running "Terrorists ... To [surgically] Implant Bombs In Humans" up the flagpole—

"This is something we've been concerned about for quite some time," said J. Bennet Waters, a security consultant with the Washington, D.C.-based Chertoff Group and a former Transportation Security Administration official in the Bush administration.

Business is no doubt slow for the Chertoff Group.

There's the usual vagueness about no known threat; terrorists believed to be considering this tactic; yada, yada, yada.

So, this means we're about to trade airport colonoscopies for pre-flight surgery? I'm sure the Chertoff Group has some technology at the ready.

I can't find an NPR link to the story, but they most certainly were pushing this.

I know the talking point now is a supposed increase in longevity, even as the average actual resident of this country has less and less access to health care.

And so, the new conventional wisdom: pushed here by a blandly wonkish, bow-tie wearing "progressive."

So shape up, you lazy, elderly proles, and get a damn job! A 91-year old (born to wealth; previous Republican appointee to the nation's unelected branch of government) is feeling frisky, so what's your problem?

Among other stories that are surprising only if given coverage: "Medicaid Makes 'Big Difference' In Lives, Study Finds."

Shocking, the thought that having medical care is better for the poor than not having care.

But it seems a controlled, statistically significant study has proved the point. So: now it's science versus the Reaganesque anecdotes of the "president of the conservative National Center for Policy Analysis," who was told by "a Boston cabdriver" that her medicaid sucked.

To which, one might respond, "Why does someone who works for a living in this country need medicaid?" But that's a whole other (no matter how connected) issue.

We also get to hear from a doctor (and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute), who claims there are ever so many (unidentified) studies showing outcomes are worse for medicaid beneficiaries than for people with no coverage.

This morning, among the disgraceful bullshit that passes for coverage of the economy, was this.

"When we think about government cuts, you think of bureaucrats, you know, people sitting at desks where we just don't really need them. And yet the reality is, there's a lot of post office workers, mail deliverers, and policemen, firemen, teachers who are losing their jobs."

You mean, "government" includes firemen, teachers, et. al.? Why, who ever could have given people the idea that government is so horrid?

And who'd have imagined that substantial numbers of people with secure, middle-class jobs could be good for the economy?

Get over it! All good pundits agree: government employment is a thing of the past.

It's healthy for the populace to be reduced to fighting over whatever corporate scraps there are, at whatever wages and conditions the "market" will allow.

But, it's not as if these stories tell me anything I don't already know. Although, in classic Pravda fashion, they work well enough for listening between the lines.

The Ronald Reagan Memorial Employment Plan

Entrance to Amalgamated Sugar Company factory at opening of second beet season. Nyssa, Oregon; 1939
Photographer: Dorothea Lange
Library of Congress FSA/OWI archive

No surprise that the jobs program is a closed door, for most of us.

But it's a great deal for all the former speechwriters and surviving members of his administration, what with their book deals and wingnut foundation gigs.

This Friday, Morning Edition gave nearly eight minutes to this, on the upcoming anniversary of Reagan's March 30, 1981 popularity surge.

Here, it's not a former Reagan staffer cashing in, but a WaPo writer (who happens to be married to an NPR correspondent). Wilber has detoured from his federal court system beat to devote 320 pages to "the day the shots were fired, and how Reagan managed to keep his sense of humor throughout the traumatic events."

Or perhaps, after a lifetime in acting, he never broke character.

We'll never have so much airtime devoted to Reagan's record, so we'll have to settle for this dewey-eyed piece, as it rehashes the operating room anecdotes of he who was dubbed by Gore Vidal, the Acting President.

The segment did have one revealing bit, in an interview with the Secret Service agent who got Reagan to the hospital—

"Since he did live and do what he did for those eight years, you can see the results of saving his life. And that's what our job is, saving lives... Before that event, even though there had been attacks on John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King [Jr.], a whole bevy of problems for the Secret Service, we still took a defensive posture. With this event we realized that wouldn't work anymore, and we did it in a flash. That's what came out of it..."

Threats to Kennedys and King: ehhh...
To Reagan: wake-up call!

On other job fronts, if Wisconsinites could fire Scott Walker today, they likely would.

His moves since day one in the Governor's office couldn't have been more obviously patterned on Reagan's career.

There was the attack on unions [see: President Reagan]. His earliest tactic was to threaten teachers and nurses with the National Guard, and his "budget repair" is, among many things, an assault on the University of Wisconsin [see: Governor Reagan, on both counts].

Walker may be unpopular at home—and subject to recall next year—but he'll never be out of work. He's got the media spotlight and big money behind him; a made man with a lifetime ticket to the right-wing gravy train.

All around the country, everyone else needing a job can expect the aid and compassion the great man himself always displayed.

Some quotes from Paul Slansky, The Clothes Have No Emperor: A Chronicle of the American '80s— [1982]

1/19 At his seventh press conference, President Reagan:

• Claims there are "a million people more working than there were in 1980," though statistics show that 100,000 fewer are employed
...
• Responds to a question about the 17% black unemployment rate by pointing out that "in this time of great unemployment," Sunday's papers had "24 full pages of ... employers looking for employees," though most of the jobs available…require special training, for which his administration has cut funds by over 30%.

3/16 "Is it news if some fellow out in South Succotash someplace has just been laid off, that he should be interviewed nationwide?"
—President Reagan—whose Presidency is based on the premise that people believe what they see on TV—complaining about coverage of the nation's economic suffering

4/15 "The statisticians in Washington have funny ways of counting."
—President Reagan explaining to Illinois high school students why, although the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a rise in unemployment, he believes the jobless rate has in fact declined

9/4 "South Succotash, with its population of 11 million, must be a considerable place."
—AFL-CIO president Lane Kirkland on the unemployment figures

10/4 President Reagan suggests—and not, by any means, for the first time—that since he sees big help-wanted sections in the Sunday papers, unemployment must be caused by a lot of lazy people who'd just rather not work.

10/18 "Now we are trying to get unemployment to go up, and I think we are going to succeed."
—President Reagan getting confused during a GOP fundraising speech

12/23 President Reagan suggests that the key to solving the unemployment problem could very well be something as simple as hiring unnecessary workers. "If a lot of businesses ... could hire just one person ... it would be interesting to see how much we can reduce these unemployment rolls."

[1983]

1/18 "The President and Cap sit around and talk about how workfare got surfers off the beach in California. They have no concept of what is going on."
—Unnamed aide on President Reagan's failure to comprehend the seriousness of the recession

And some undated quotes:

THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION TALKS ABOUT THE ECONOMY

"The number of people remaining in poverty is very small and it grows smaller every day."
—Domestic adviser Martin Anderson

"An increase in the number of people seeking work who did not find it."
—Larry Speakes on the cause of unemployment

"Just remember, for every person who is out of work, there are nine of us with jobs."
—President Reagan on the unemployment rate

The Banality of Delusion

"Manpower, junior size... The Jefferson High School drum and bugle corps in Roanoke, Virginia started the junior commando rally with a fanfare and a drum roll... school children awaited the opening of the rally that was to number them as part of America's junior army to collect scrap for our armed forces."
Photographer: Howard Liberman
Library of Congress
NPR story this morning:

"Exiting Iraq, U.S. Brigade Traces Invasion Route."

From comments by soldiers at a stop on the way to Kuwait:

"...our job is done here (I just can't wait to get home...)"

"... we started really well; I don't know if there's more we could've done..."

"... we came here to liberate: freedom for a country. Things are gonna happen...but our main objective we came here to do has been accomplished..."

From a pep talk by their captain:

This is our nation's life work, right here...there are guys who have honorably retired from the army and have not seen this thing resolved. But you'll see it tonight: we're about to put "The End" on a big chapter in the book of military history.

Correspondent Mike Shuster does acknowledge, "That may be true for most of the American troops who have served in Iraq, but not for the 50,000 who will remain for another 15 months, nor for the Iraqis themselves."

Which is followed by audio from Tuesday's Baghdad suicide bombing that killed 61 police recruits.

The battalion's commander "says the US has done everything possible to stabilize Iraq." In his own words,

We've given them enough time to get it right themeslves, to secure the election, secure the population, defeat anti-government forces. It's time to go home and, you know, wish them the best of luck with the future. But at the same time, it demonstrates our commitment to the people of this country; we'll be strategic allies, our friendships are eternal...

Why do all the quotes have the same tone of corporate happy talk made in the wake of a horrendous executive decision?

Sure, the grunts have to tell themselves this stuff.

And they've had so many years of practice: with policies like the hijacking of the National Guard into the Bush wars along with stop loss; add the lack of job opportunities at home, and enlistees as a group have spent year after year in something they want to believe has had a purpose.

But the smugness of that commander's "best of luck" to our "eternal" friends is in no way real "history" or defensible sentiment. It's not even the least bit convincing as a form of "declare victory and get the hell out."

We certainly won't be "out." And the suffering we've unleashed won't end.

Our victory is, of course, conventional wisdom among our self-regarding deemers of what is to be the conventional wisdom.

Yet there are still a few non-believers. Robert Parry, for one, persists in trying to inject some pesky reality.

Unprotected

WPA/Pennsylvania Federal Art Project
Artist: Robert Muchley
Library of Congress
Although I'm hardly expected to use my brain at the office, I do make efforts to protect it.

Efforts foiled again and again—as Monday morning arrives, and I'm wakened by the clock radio.

Today's "Morning Edition" included this, from
Dina Temple-Raston:

Polls carried out in Muslim countries by the Pew Charitable Trust late last year show a huge shift in public sentiment against al-Qaida. Pakistanis with an unfavorable opinion of al-Qaida jumped from 34 percent to 61 percent last year. Only 9 percent of those surveyed in Pakistan have a favorable view of al-Qaida.

Sounds about like the perception of Republicans—not that you'd know, from the media treatment they get.

But what really set me off was the Wisdom-Gleaned-From-Pop-Culture finish to the piece:

For the past decade, the Fox show 24 has built a franchise on America's fascination and fear of terrorism. Remember when Jack Bauer was cool? The show 24 was often ahead of the curve. It had a black president, years before President Obama. It offered a window into the fight against terrorism. It helped fuel a serious debate over the use of torture.

Serious debate? That's WTF one of NPR's finest calls the prime-time legitimizing of torture?

Legitimized so much that in 2007 Jane Mayer reported on the dean of West Point and other brass flying to Hollywood—to plead with the show's producers—that

... the show promoted unethical and illegal behavior and had adversely affected the training and performance of real American soldiers. "I'd like them to stop," [West Point dean William] Finnegan said of the show"s producers. "They should do a show where torture backfires."

...

Although reports of abuses by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have angered much of the world, the response of Americans has been more tepid. Finnegan attributes the fact that "we are generally more comfortable and more accepting of this," in part, to the popularity of "24"... The third expert at the meeting was Tony Lagouranis, a former Army interrogator in the war in Iraq. He told the show's staff that DVDs of shows such as "24" circulate widely among soldiers stationed in Iraq..."People watch the shows, and then walk into the interrogation booths and do the same things they’ve just seen."

Other material in Mayer's piece includes how seriously Bush administration members have used the show as an "example" of how to fight their "wot," as well as the apparent origin of the "ticking time bomb" trope itself: a 1960 French novel, published during the Algerian occupation. "Les Centurions" appears to have had no basis in actual events, but may have provided a "more palatable rationale" for French torture than traditionally racist ones (i.e., Algerians were brutes who only understood force).

But back to our crack NPR reporter—

And now Fox has just announced that the ticking clock is winding down -- this is 24's last season. So is this another case of the writers of 24 predicting the future?

"It probably doesn't change our analysis too much," McNeal says. "But certainly suggests something about pop culture-wise thinking about terrorism. Maybe we're all just bored with it."

Boredom is like a death sentence for terrorists. This is one way these movements can end.

Looking for what else Temple-Raston has had to say lately, I find this one I [mercifully] missed two weeks ago. About Jus' Folks in The True Heartland—

America's New Kinder, Gentler Militia

To cancel out the infuriating spin, I listened to the latest Driftglass-Blue Gal Friday Podcast. These weekly efforts just get better and better.

Only one problem: this week, as always, they're talking sense, as they size up the media and wingnut landscape.

And they lay out what would win elections for Dems. But they may come from Driftglass' love of science fiction...

Terrain and Resources

IL Federal Art Project, WPA
Artist: John Buczak
Library of Congress
I always think I'm attuned to changing language—and ready to bristle at new euphemisms and manipulative usages. But until waking to the sound of this on Monday, the military "Human Terrain System" got by me for years.

Immediate reaction—
in this country, we're Human Resources; the whole world is potential Human Terrain.

NPR's story, "Marines Tap Social Sciences In Afghan War Effort," opens with a visit to a sympathetic (and apparently blond) figure, who

...stood out at a recent meeting that Marine and Afghan army commanders held with local farmers and shopkeepers. Tall and fair, the 36-year-old researcher was dressed in an Afghan headscarf and Marine uniform, the only woman in the group.

The segment continues with a board member of the American Anthropological Association, a group that for years has pointed out the ethical problems. Morning Edition's tone implies that some pesky academics object to this program's good intentions.

David Price, a member of the Network of Concerned Anthropologists, provides more detail: Human Terrain Systems Dissenter Resigns, Tells Inside Story of Training's Heart of Darkness.

A statement by that dissenter, John Allison, "Summary Critique of Human Terrain Systems from a Trainee's Perspective," is at the end of Price's piece. Judging from Allison's account, the program's rationale is that "experts" will reveal the secrets of the native mind, while lending a humane, social sciences face to the occupiers as they pacify the formerly inscrutable.

With retired military recruiting the social scientists and cashing in on the contracting fees.

Davis describes the culmination of the training course: a war-game exercise set in a Midwest town "where environmentalist-separatists had taken over" a power plant and "broken away from US control." The trainees are to

1. 'Find out more details on the criminal activity.'
2. Find out the best conduits to pass 'information' (PsyOps and InfoOps) to the local population.
3. ... produce a 'Research Plan' to understand the situation at the ... power plant – people's concerns, desires, etc., and identify those who were 'problem-solvers' and those who were 'problem-causers,' and the rest of the population whom would be the target of the information operations to move their Center of Gravity toward that set of viewpoints and values which was the 'desired end-state' of the military's strategy.

When other Americans are viewed this way, you just know the approach toward the occupied—what with their dark skin and wrong religion—will go so very well.

In other news of our noble military endeavors, there's the transcript at the end of this account of Gen. McChrystal's recent chat with the troops. He is asked this—

On escalation of force, have you considered engaging the local community on the issue? We could explain at the brigade/battalion level what behavior we find threatening, and how we are trained to react when we feel threatened. We could negotiate with the community leaders over mutually agreeable actions and reactions that are better understood by both and gives part ownership of the issue to the community and empowers them in line with our approach to reintegration.

If nothing else, the social sciences in Afghanistan have imprinted some jargon on this questioner.

In a gee-whiz response, McChrystal admits he can't answer, but

...we certainly ought to be doing that. We have so many escalation of force issues, and someone gets hurt in the process, and we say, 'They didn't respond like they were supposed to.'

...in the nine-plus months I've been here, not a single case where we have engaged in an escalation of force incident and hurt someone has it turned out that the vehicle had a suicide bomb or weapons in it and, in many cases, had families in it. That doesn't mean I'm criticizing the people who are executing. I'm just giving you perspective. We've shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force.

As I read this on Monday, Wikileaks has revealed one case of the military surveying the Iraqi human terrain—and finding video game targets.

Chris Floyd writes about counting upon the American people to rise up at this shocking revelations of this video.

...A few days late for April Fool, but, one gets the idea.

Back in the Homeland, some human resources owned by this guy are turned into ex-resources.

Blankenship may not own West Virginia outright, but it's not for lack of effort.

If there are any penalties to be paid for this latest disaster, they will be a very small calculation against the profits of unregulated, non-union mining. All goes well, when you're a Person in terms of dumping corporate profits into political control, but not a person subject to criminal prosecution.

While, those wacky French do this—

The Paris prosecutor's office has opened an investigation into allegations of "workplace harassment" at France Telecom following a spate of suicides at the company...

In other recent news: it's so good to know those paragons in the Catholic hieararchy control our elections and Supreme Court.

Naturally, it's the liberals' fault. Or as Tintin translates from Ross Douthat's column on the NYT "Pope-Ed Page"—

Roman Catholic priests like to schtup altar boys because liberals in the 70s promoted free love.

From another Tintin post:

It's totally unfair for liberals to blame the Pope for the current pederasty kerfuffle because the Roman Catholic Church is just so enormous that, in fact, the Pope has absolutely no power over it and can't do anything to discipline pedophile priests no matter how hard he tries.

To mark April 1, I had planned to post some typical "things are great—look how well the rich are doing" story.

I couldn't find it on that date, it was there—in Forbes—

What The Top U.S. Companies Pay In Taxes
Christopher Helman, 04.01.10, 3:00 PM ET

As you work on your taxes this month, here's something to raise your hackles: Some of the world's biggest, most profitable corporations enjoy a far lower tax rate than you do--that is, if they pay taxes at all.
The most egregious example is General Electric. Last year the conglomerate generated $10.3 billion in pretax income, but ended up owing nothing to Uncle Sam. In fact, it recorded a tax benefit of $1.1 billion.
...

Exxon tries to limit the tax pain with the help of 20 wholly owned subsidiaries domiciled in the Bahamas, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands that (legally) shelter the cash flow from operations in the likes of Angola, Azerbaijan and Abu Dhabi. Exxon has tens of billions in earnings permanently reinvested overseas. Likewise, GE has $84 billion in overseas income parked indefinitely outside the U.S.

Forbes' motive in covering this at all, of course, is to catapult the "US corporate taxes are exorbitant" propaganda

... it's the tax benefit of overseas operations that is the biggest reason why multinationals end up with lower tax rates than the rest of us. It only makes sense that multinationals "put costs in high-tax countries and profits in low-tax countries," says Scott Hodge, president of the Tax Foundation. Those low-tax countries are almost anywhere but the U.S. "When you add in state taxes, the U.S. has the highest tax burden among industrialized countries...

And to conclude

"The average Joe should be in favor of lower corporate taxes," says Hodge, "because ultimately they are paying the corporate income tax. Either as workers, getting lower wages and fewer jobs, or as consumers, paying higher prices, or as retirees, getting lower dividends and earnings on their investments."

What do dates mean, anyway—when the owners can play April Fool jokes on us proles every day of the year.

Before the week was out, there was this latest No-One-Could-Have-Predicted pose by our financial geniuses:

Prince, Rubin Say They Didn't Recognize Citi's CDO Risk in Time.

Ancient History

United Press, 1948
U.S. Information Agency/National Archives

Oh, for the days when Democrats turned defeat into victory. Instead of the other way around...

Now that Scott Brown has given the GOP a "41-59 majority in the Senate," it's a golden opportunity for Dems to lose even more seats, by moving even farther rightward.

The salivating of the media over Brown was disgusting, yet completely unsurprising. After all, who wants a Ted Kennedy working for a better country, when truck drivin' Republicans are the real Amurka.

And electing a guy you want to have a beer with—it's worked so very well before.

The degradation of any remaining pretense of democracy got a big boost from the corporate operatives who decided this one.

All during a month that began with the Underpants Bomber serving as the media's non-stop setup for a Republican narrative. And with airtime provided for Dana Perino and Rudy "9/11" Guiliani to claim there was no terrorism under Bush... It shouldn't be long before that version is in the Texas-approved history books.

Authentic US history lost a giant, with Howard Zinn's passing. Educated under the GI Bill: a fine example of why the owners oppose education for the masses.

Liberal NPR provides equal time for rabid spittle aimed at Zinn's corpse.

At least there was one bright spot in the month, with the vote to raise corporate taxes in Oregon—by an electorate, as Digby notes, very like the one in Massachusetts.

And it's encouraging that Scott Roeder was convicted, given the judge and venue. His handlers will see that he's made into a martyr, but we can hope that he doesn't again see the light of day.

The SOTU address was gratifying in terms of hearing Obama call out Republicans and the not-so-Supremes. Not so much, in terms of policies that 40 years ago would have been to the right of moderate Republicanism.

The same policies—and the continuation of Bush policies—that gets us nothing good, and gets Obama nothing but a media narrative of, "Biggest Socialist in History!"

Except for the media slant, this is just like the Bush years. And it takes as much constant effort to counter the narrative being pushed, the events being ignored, the celebrity doings placed in the forefront—just to try to keep a grip on sanity. The big difference between then and now: the media will endlessly dissect what they see as Obama's shortcomings.

And there's the relentness effort to eliminate truth from public life—as driftglass puts it, the reality of "living in an America where larger and larger chunks of recent and inconvenient history are just being whisked away with the giddy recklessness of a four-year-old who has just discovered lying."

Scott Horton unsweeps a previously whisked away story: the June 2006 "suicides" of three prisoners at Guantánamo. Horton reports a military whistleblower's grim evidence of torture and murder.

And Horton's story clarifies just why the commander, Rear Admiral Harry Harris, was in a hurry not only to call the sudden deaths "suicides," but also to insist they were "an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us."

Reporting From Planet FYIGM

WPA Federal Art Project
[New York, between 1936 and 1939]
Library of Congress

Weekdays, my alarm clock is set to pre-dawn NPR, since "Morning Edition" is annoying enough to make me bolt out of bed to turn down the volume. Once I'm up, I have to keep the sound on, to stay aware of the time while I struggle to get ready for work and out the door.

If I were a retired old fogey with ample free time—instead of an OF who can expect to work until dropping—there would be daily fodder for writing indignant e-mails to the network.

Some segments particularly stand out for egregiousness, and I always mean to check out those transcripts. But as I'm also running late and about to spend 8 hours having my brains sucked out—by the time I remember to look at NPR's site, I can rarely find the right date or segment.

But this Friday I had to make a point of looking for this.

An installment of the grating "Planet Money" series informs us that the proposed "Cadillac tax"

is a tax on the most expensive health care plans. Executives with gold-plated plans don't like it and neither do labor unions, whose workers have generous plans. But many economists say it could help everyone in the long run.

To illustrate the "he said/she said, but an expert will settle this" principle, the reporters take this $43,000 a year call center worker ...

I have asthma and I've had it since I was probably 10, 12 years old. And it seems to be progressively getting worse. I pay over $1,500 a year for my medication. And I need those medications to live. And I heard some senators wanted to tax our health care benefits. I just couldn't believe it.

... and introduce her to a university economist. Because, according to these crack reporters—

DAVID KESTENBAUM: Economists on this issue feel lonely, sad and very misunderstood.
CHANA JOFFE-WALT: Well, yeah, because economists use math and charts to make their arguments. Labor unions use emotion and advertisements featuring sympathetic characters with asthma.

There will be no pausing to ask why the medication should cost $1,500 a year.

The ensuing exchange between worker and economist is grotesque.

Ms. Stanley, who is worried about sheer survival, is assured by Professor Stearns that her costs would go up, but only if AT & T keeps her current, expensive plan. Which they surely won't do—they will switch to a cheaper plan, using the savings to give her a raise.

Among the most painful parts—

Ms. STANLEY: They are not going to give us I'm at top wage, right now. Only cost I get - only wage increase I get is the cost of living.
Prof. STEARN: But they are getting something in return. If you were to say to them, we are willing to give up $8000 of health insurance benefits, then I don't see any reason why they wouldn't be willing to do that.
Ms. STANLEY [Panic rising in her voice]: No, they're not, it's not the way it works in bargaining at all. I know they are not going to give me that.
JOFFE-WALT: What is your proof, though, how do you know that is not going to happen?
Ms. STANLEY: That hasn't changed for 18 years.
JOFFE-WALT: Economists are convinced that this will happen. They say there's lots of data showing when employers pay more for health benefits, they pay less in wages. So, it should work in reverse. Less in benefits, more money to wages.

At first, I take the increasingly strangled tone of the worker's voice to be due to terror, as she comes to realize she's been ambushed into talking about her employer on national radio. But as she's in a union, she may have some protection against retaliation.

Then, I decide her tone must really be from frustration at trying to get through to someone so divorced from reality he has to be told that passing savings to workers is "not the way it works."

Not only can he not comprehend, he clearly thinks she is the stupid one—

Prof. STEARN: When was the last time you had a medical emergency?
Ms. STANLEY: I went to the ER seven years ago when I broke my arm.
Prof. STEARN: It sounds like you don't need the health benefit plan that you have. On the whole, my guess is you're losing money on your health insurance. You would benefit from having a worse health benefit plan and taking that extra money and getting higher wages.
Ms. STANLEY: I disagree.
Prof. STEARN: But you should change your mind.

The patronizing of this woman by NPR and its "expert"—the type whose abstractions have done so much to endorse the turning of this country into what we are now—is infuriating. As usual, Upton Sinclair's observation applies: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

I'm still steaming about the tenured jerk, who sounds completely sincere—he seems to have no agenda beyond promoting post-Reagan conventional thinking (and he might very well be comfortable voting Democratic). A man so expert, he can ignore all of the last 30 years to claim that corporate savings will go to raising wages of ordinary drudges. When it's a fucking wonder that AT&T hasn't outsourced this woman's call center to India yet.

I've been working on my plan of starting the year by reading about Great Depression topics.

And looking at WPA art: there's some wonderful stuff that I plan to post over the coming months. But it's also a painful reminder of how far we've been pushed from public expenditures being allowed to benefit the public. And of how we've entered a fourth decade when distribution of wealth upward is the unquestioned norm.

This week, the starter gun was fired for corporate money to take control of all elected offices outright.

And this week was the anniversary of Obama's inauguration. A year ago, but feeling light years away in terms of the possibilities that had seemed to exist, at the time. Not that any sane person expected a magic wand to be waved. But some of us did expect movement in a good direction—instead of a year of wasted time and one-sided "bipartisanship," all while the right tastes blood and acts accordingly.

Corporations will not be subjected to laws by a government they own. But there will be increasingly harsh ones—including "economic laws"—for all of us surplus humanity who have to live on the real Planet Money, locked down by its rulers, Corporate Persons.

December 2005 (II): Brand Loyalty

Poor Clever Sister: forced to hear a co-worker's daily news roundup, accompanied by hearty praise of her source—"I'm a liberal! I listen to NPR!"

Now that the latest corporate takeover has hit local phone service, this woman burbles: "I'm so happy it's AT&T again! It's what I grew up with!"

This is after revelations of the scope of NSA spying on Americans' calls, accomplished with the "cooperation of American telecommunications companies."

CS' annoying co-worker also keeps announcing, "I can't wait until 2008, to vote for John McCain—he's a maverick!" Now, wherever could she have gotten that idea?

CS finds this seasonal item—

A bah humbug moment
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
BARRIE BARBER
THE SAGINAW NEWS

A Saginaw Township leader wants an apology from national talk show TV and radio host Bill O'Reilly for his on air declaration that the suburb has banned anyone from wearing red and green clothing.

At Democratic Underground, where this excerpt still dwells, a commenter says O'Reilly has made this claim before—when it supposedly happened in Plano, Texas.

It would seem illogical for O'Reilly to pick on good Republican-voting places in "The Heartland" for his rants. But this must be part of your right-wing demagogue's confidence that cognitive dissonance is unknown to his audience, since it would require cognitive ability in the first place.

Just as it's fine for him to scream about "values," while writing bad, dirty fiction. And whose sexual harassment of an employee includes turning a previously innocent vegetarian dish into something revolting.

At work, the funds raised for poor folk have been distributed. And the thank-you cards are posted in the lunchroom.

One is from a woman who tells us how she prayed for her family to have Christmas this year. She is not surprised that her prayers were answered, because, "My God is an awesome God!"

Her God, apparently, being the God of Cheap Shit Made By Chinese Slave Labor.

And there's the letter from a man who tells how he's never asked for a handout, yet—he was laid off; he developed a life-threatening medical condition; he has small children; his unemployment (which he only took for the sake of the children) ran out...

All detailed in several pages the guy needs for self-justification.

Finally thanking those responsible for the gift, the wonderfully voluntary and non-governmental people [never mind that their paychecks are subsidized by State and Federal funds...], Mr. Fox Target Audience signs off—

I could wish you "Happy Holidays," but instead I will say: "Merry Christmas!"

A bold, defiant stand, in his own mind.

He may have nothing else, but his friends on the teevee will make sure he always has imaginary liberals to blame for threatening his Christmas...