Politics

Congress Needs to Get to Work

Thursday, 19 January 2012 09:24

Excerpt: "Will someone call a psychiatrist? This is a Congress that is beyond dysfunctional. It is an obstacle to progress in America, a graveyard for both democracy and justice. No wonder a new Washington Post-ABC news poll found an all time high of 84 percent of Americans disapprove of the job Congress is doing."

Ralph Nader. (photo: TruthAlliance)

Congress Needs to Get to Work

By Ralph Nader, Reader Supported News

19 January 12

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he editor of The Hill, a newspaper exclusively covering Congress, said that Congress was not going to do very much in 2012, except for "the big bill" which is extending the payroll tax cut and unemployment compensation, which expire in late February. That two month extension will likely reignite the fight between Democrats and Republicans that flared last month.

In 2012, Congress, the editor implied, would be busy electioneering. That is, the Senators and Representatives will be busy raising money from commercial interests so they can keep their jobs. There won't be much time to change anything about misallocated public budgets, unfair tax rules, undeclared costly wars, and job-depleting trade policies that, if fixed, would increase employment and public investment.

So this year, Congress will spend well over $3 billion on its own expenses to do nothing of significance other than shift more debt to individual taxpayers by depleting the social security payroll tax by over $100 billion so both parties can say they enacted a tax cut! That is what the Democrats in Congress and the President call a significant accomplishment.

Will someone call a psychiatrist? This is a Congress that is beyond dysfunctional. It is an obstacle to progress in America, a graveyard for both democracy and justice. No wonder a new Washington Post-ABC news poll found an all time high of 84 percent of Americans disapprove of the job Congress is doing.

Both Republicans and Democrats say they want to reduce the deficit. But they are avoiding, in varying degrees, doing this in any way that would discomfort the rich and powerful. One would think that, especially in an election year, the following legislative agenda would be very popular with the voters.

First, restore the taxes on the rich that George W. Bush cut ten years ago which expanded the deficit. So clueless are the Democrats that they have not learned to use the word "restore" instead of the Republican word "increase" when talking about taxes that were previously cut for the millionaires and billionaires.

Second, collect unpaid taxes. The IRS estimates that $385 billion of tax revenues are not collected yearly. If the IRS budget increased and more people were hired, every dollar it spent would return $200 from tax evaders, including corporations and the wealthy. When taxes are not collected, the large majority of honest taxpayers are left with the unfair consequences. Imagine that money being applied to jobs that repair our crumbling public works.

Third, end the outrageous corporate loopholes that allow profitable large corporations to pay just half of the statutory tax rate of thirty-five percent. More than a few pay less than five percent and many pay zero on major profits. During a recent three year period, according to the Citizens for Tax Justice, a dozen major corporations such as Verizon and Honeywell paid no taxes on many billions of profits, and the legendary tax escapee, General Electric, managed to pay zero and even receive billions in benefits from the U.S. Treasury.

Fourth, do what most U.S. soldiers in the field have believed should have been done years ago - get out of Afghanistan and Iraq and nearby countries like Kuwait where thousands of U.S. soldiers based in Iraq have moved.

Fifth, to increase consumer demand, which creates jobs, raise the federal minimum wage from the present level of $7.25 - which is $2.75 less than it was way back in 1968, adjusted for inflation - to $10 per hour. Businesses who keep raising prices and executive salaries (eg. Walmart and McDonalds) since 1968 should be reminded of their windfall in that period.

In addition, President Obama can urge mutual and pension funds and individual shareholders to demand higher dividends from companies like EMC, Google, Apple, Cisco, Oracle and others firms hoarding two trillion dollars in cash as if this money was the corporate bosses', not the owner-shareholders. More dividends, more consumer demand, more jobs.

Want to know why Congress doesn't make such popular and prudent decisions for the American people? Because the people are not objecting to all the power that their Congressional representatives and their corporate allies have sucked away from them. Because the people are not putting teeth and time into the "sovereignty of the people" expressed in the preamble to our Constitution which begins with "We the people," not "We the corporation."

So citizens, it's your choice. If you don't demand a say day after day, you'll continue to pay day after day.

By the way, the Congressional switchboard number is 202-224-3121.

Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer and author. His most recent book - and first novel - is "Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us." His most recent work of non-fiction is "The Seventeen Traditions."

6 comments

For God So Loved the One Percent...

Wednesday, 18 January 2012 17:34

Kruse beginss: "In recent weeks Mitt Romney has become the poster child for unchecked capitalism, a role he seems to embrace with relish. Concerns about economic equality, he told Matt Lauer of NBC, were really about class warfare."

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks at a campaign rally, 01/18/12. (photo: Getty Images)

For God So Loved the One Percent ...

By Kevin M. Kruse, The New York Times

18 January 12

�

n recent weeks Mitt Romney has become the poster child for unchecked capitalism, a role he seems to embrace with relish. Concerns about economic equality, he told Matt Lauer of NBC, were really about class warfare.

"When you have a president encouraging the idea of dividing America based on the 99 percent versus 1 percent," he said, "you have opened up a whole new wave of approach in this country which is entirely inconsistent with the concept of one nation under God."

Mr. Romney was on to something, though perhaps not what he intended.

The concept of "one nation under God" has a noble lineage, originating in Abraham Lincoln�s hope at Gettysburg that "this nation, under God, shall not perish from the earth." After Lincoln, however, the phrase disappeared from political discourse for decades. But it re-emerged in the mid-20th century, under a much different guise: corporate leaders and conservative clergymen deployed it to discredit Franklin D. Roosevelt�s New Deal.

During the Great Depression, the prestige of big business sank along with stock prices. Corporate leaders worked frantically to restore their public image and simultaneously roll back the "creeping socialism" of the welfare state. Notably, the American Liberty League, financed by corporations like DuPont and General Motors, made an aggressive case for capitalism. Most, however, dismissed its efforts as self-interested propaganda. (A Democratic Party official joked that the organization should have been called "the American Cellophane League" because "first, it�s a DuPont product and, second, you can see right through it.")

Realizing that they needed to rely on others, these businessmen took a new tack: using generous financing to enlist sympathetic clergymen as their champions. After all, according to one tycoon, polls showed that, "of all the groups in America, ministers had more to do with molding public opinion" than any other.

The Rev. James W. Fifield, pastor of the elite First Congregational Church of Los Angeles, led the way in championing a new union of faith and free enterprise. "The blessings of capitalism come from God," he wrote. "A system that provides so much for the common good and happiness must flourish under the favor of the Almighty."

Christianity, in Mr. Fifield�s interpretation, closely resembled capitalism, as both were systems in which individuals rose or fell on their own. The welfare state, meanwhile, violated most of the Ten Commandments. It made a "false idol" of the federal government, encouraged Americans to covet their neighbors� possessions, stole from the wealthy and, ultimately, bore false witness by promising what it could never deliver.

Throughout the 1930s and �40s, Mr. Fifield and his allies advanced a new blend of conservative religion, economics and politics that one observer aptly anointed "Christian libertarianism." Mr. Fifield distilled his ideology into a simple but powerful phrase - "freedom under God." With ample support from corporate patrons and business lobbies like the United States Chamber of Commerce, his gospel of godly capitalism soon spread across the country through personal lectures, weekly radio broadcasts and a monthly magazine.

In 1951, the campaign culminated in a huge Fourth of July celebration of the theme. Former President Herbert C. Hoover and Gen. Douglas MacArthur headlined an organizing committee of conservative all-stars, including celebrities like Walt Disney and Ronald Reagan, but largely comprising business titans like Conrad Hilton, J. C. Penney, Harvey Firestone Jr. and J. Howard Pew.

In an extensive public relations campaign, they encouraged communities to commemorate Independence Day with "freedom under God" ceremonies, using full-page newspaper ads trumpeting the connection between faith and free enterprise. They also held a nationwide sermon contest on the theme, with clergymen competing for cash. Countless local events were promoted by a national "Freedom Under God" radio program, produced with the help of the filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille, hosted by Jimmy Stewart and broadcast on CBS.

Ultimately, these organizers believed that they had made a lasting impression. "The very words 'freedom under God� have added to the vocabulary of freedom a new term," they boasted. Soon the entire nation would think of itself as "under God." Indeed, in 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower presided over the first presidential prayer breakfast on a "government under God" theme and worked to promote public religiosity in a variety of ways. In 1954, as this "under-God consciousness" swept the nation, Congress formally added the phrase to the Pledge of Allegiance.

In the end, Mr. Romney is correct to claim that complaints about economic inequality are inconsistent with the concept of "one nation under God." But that�s only because the "1 percent" of an earlier era intended it that way.

Kevin M. Kruse, an associate professor of history at Princeton, is the author of the forthcoming �One Nation Under God: Corporations, Christianity, and the Rise of the Religious Right.�

9 comments

President Obama Stands Up to Big Oil

Wednesday, 18 January 2012 17:31

Redford writes: "Because Big Oil lost, this is not the end of the fight. This is the beginning of the real battle for America's energy future."

Actor and environmental activist Robert Redford. (photo: Contour/Getty Images)

President Obama Stands Up to Big Oil

Robert Redford, Reader Supported News

18 January 12

�

et's face it: Big Oil is used to getting its way. But not today... and we have President Obama to thank for standing up to them in spite of the political risk.

President Obama has just rejected a permit for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline - a project that promised riches for the oil giants and an environmental disaster for the rest of us.

His decision represents a victory of historic proportions for people from throughout the pipeline path and all across America who have waged an uphill, years-long fight against one of the most nightmarish fossil fuel projects of our time.

But make no mistake: Big Oil is going to fight back hard and fast.

Why? Because this was a prime-time fight. The oil giants made sure of that.

Big Oil had their Congressional boosters put the president to an election-year test by forcing him to decide the pipeline's fate within 60 days. Then, the oil lobby itself rolled out its biggest PR guns to get the job done.

The head of the American Petroleum Institute sent the White House a very public and blatant warning: Approve the Keystone XL or face "huge political consequences."

Because Big Oil lost, this is not the end of the fight. This is the beginning of the real battle for America's energy future.

That battle will be fought in Congress, where Representatives who've collected $12 million from the Oil & Gas industry over the past two years are sure to try to raise Keystone XL from the dead.

So when you hear Big Oil call Keystone XL a national jobs plan - ask "Are you kidding me?" A single pipeline project is not a jobs plan. Economic security is to be found in clean energy not in dirty energy that threatens us with oil spills and ever worsening harm from climate change.

And when you hear Big Oil say that we need Keystone XL for our security - tell them to get real. Energy security comes from reducing our dependence on oil, not from a pipeline that would leave us with the risk but send the tar sands oil overseas.

The president stood up to Big Oil and listened to Americans saying: "We're done with fossil fuel schemes that destroy our land, poison our water and wreak havoc with our climate so that oil companies can make out like bandits." Now we need to continue to stand with the president and make it clear that tar sands pipelines are not in our national interest.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.

31 comments

FOCUS | Noam Chomsky on Ron Paul

Wednesday, 18 January 2012 14:39

Intro: "Ron Paul's a nice guy. If I had to have dinner with one of the Republican candidates, I'd prefer to have it with him - but, his policies are off the wall."

Portrait, Noam Chomsky, 06/15/09. (photo: Sam Lahoz)

Noam Chomsky on Ron Paul

By Noam Chomsky, Information Clearing House

18 January 12

Also See Below: Scott Galindez | Occupiers Converge on Washington

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B0Q109uQ7o

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HOMSKY: Ron Paul's a nice guy. If I had to have dinner with one of the Republican candidates, I'd prefer to have it with him - but, his policies are off the wall.

I mean, sometimes I agree with him. I think we have to end the war in Afghanistan. But, if you look at the other policies, I mean, it's kind of shocking and principles that lie behind them (shakes head).... I don't know what to say about them.

In the Republican debates, at one point - and this kind of brought out who he is - he is against Federal involvement in health, in anything. He was asked something like, "Well, what if some guy's in a coma, and ... uh ... he's going to die and he never took out insurance. What should happen?"

Well, his first answer was something like, "It's a tribute to our liberty."

So, if he dies, that's a tribute to how free we are?

He kinda backed off from that, actually. There was a huge applause for when he said that. But later, reactions were elsewhere. He backed up and said, "Well, the church will take care of him ... or charities or something or other.... so, it's not a problem."

I mean, this is just savagery.

And it goes across the board. In fact, it goes through the whole so-called Libertarian ideology. It may sound nice on the surface but if you think it through, it's just a call for corporate tyranny. It takes away any barrier to corporate tyranny.

But, it's all academic. The business world would never permit it to happen because it would destroy the economy. They can't live without a powerful state, and they know it.

�

Occupiers from around the country gathered in Washington DC on Tuesday for an event they called
Occupy Congress, 01/17/12. (photo: Scott Galindez/RSN)

�

Occupiers Converge on Washington

By Scott Galindez, Reader Supported News

18 January 12

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undreds of Occupiers from around the country converged on Washington Tuesday in an event billed as Occupy Congress. Despite rain and cold weather hundreds gathered on the west lawn of the Capitol. They participated in teach-ins and non-violence trainings before a National General Assembly that began at noon.

The General Assembly broke down into four working groups. The working groups were: National Actions, Interoccupy Communications, Differing Tactics, and those staying in DC to Occupy.

At around 2 pm the Occupiers broke down into three groups: Red, Black and Green, and headed to Congressional office buildings. They broke down further in the buildings as they met with members of Congress.

One group held a street theatre in Sen. Carl Levin's office that ended with Sgt. Shamar Thomas arresting someone who was acting the part of Senator Levin.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt_SKX0pzBg

There were no arrests in the Capitol, but throughout the day a handful of protesters were arrested on the Capitol lawn. The demonstrators had a permit for a certain section of the Capitol lawn and whenever anyone strayed off that section they were told to move back by the police. At times it was reminiscent of a game of Red Rover, with protesters toying with the police and a few being arrested.

After the afternoon meetings in Congressional offices, the Occupiers gathered in front of the Rayburn Building and marched back to the west lawn of the Capitol.

At 6 pm hundreds of protesters marched to the Supreme Court where they Occupied the steps chanting, "Money is not speech." One protester was reportedly arrested on the steps.

At 7 pm they left the Supreme Court steps and marched to the White House behind two banners, Occupy Wall Street and Occupy United. As they arrived at the White House the crowd chanted, "Banks Got Bailed Out - We Got Sold Out."

Another prominent chant was "We are unstoppable, another world is possible."

Once at the White House the chant changed to "Obama Beware, Occupy is Everywhere." One protester threw a "Colbert for President" sign on the White House lawn. Occupiers also placed colorful postcards on the White House fence with their personal wishes.

After leaving the White House the Occupiers headed back to the Capital for a National Occupation party that included music and dancing.

All in all, everyone who participated was talking about being inspired by the solidarity between the different Occupations that took part. For many, yesterday was about building for the future. One participant in the breakdown group for National Actions was inspired by the plan for a National Occupation of Washington scheduled for March 30th - April 15th. Others were just happy to meet Occupiers from other cities.

Many will be staying around for Move to Amend's Occupy the Courts action at the Supreme Court on Friday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QptAVWbm9c

Scott Galindez is the Political Director of Reader Supported News, and the co-founder of Truthout.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.

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43 comments

FOCUS | Southern Fried Vultures

Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=9146"><span class="small">Will Durst, San Francisco Chronicle</span></a>

Sunday, 15 January 2012 15:14

Durst writes: "This Southern Fried Maginot Line is the last best chance to jump on the Mittmeister and the whole B-Team is lacing up their steel-toed boots and pounding nails into their soles as we speak. South Carolina is where Bush derailed McCain in 2000: and to say the above the belt tactics were outnumbered by those below the belt is both accurate and lame."

Political satirist Will Durst. (photo: WillDurst.com)

Southern Fried Vultures

By Will Durst, San Francisco Chronicle

15 January 12

�

urely you're longing to hear some scathingly humorous remarks concerning the New Hampshire Primary. And it would be our honor to relate a few pithily amusing jibes about 2012's primary Primary. Only, sorry. Not going to happen. Can't be done. NH is so� over and done with. Day before yesterday. Such archaic news, you probably read about it in some ancient medium like a broadsheet gazette with sepia toned daguerreotypes.

Oh sure, in the distant future, historians may well remark upon Willard Mitt Romney's romp. And what a righteous romp it was. With the grimacing refugee from Madame Tussaud's Wax Works avenging his 2008 defeat to John McCain by beating the rest of the field like a 4 year old with a dime store drum on Christmas morning to become the first Republican non - incumbent to sweep both the Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. And that plus 2 and a half bucks gets you a cup of coffee.

Alas, the political circus has long since moved on. Some of the camps were gone pre - already. Didn't even bother to hang around Manchester for the actual count and amount, so intent were they to seek their second wind in the warmth of the southern embrace primary action in South Carolina on the 21st and Florida 10 days later.

Hustling down, over their shoulders, the back of the pack halfheartedly tried to dismiss the former Massachusetts Governor's triumph in the Granite State as a "Isn't it Nice to See the Boy Next Door Doing so Well" kind of neighborly thing. But that proved a minor distraction and everyone knows the stakes for the final Anybody But Mitt tent need to pitched now. Today. If not sooner. Deep into the fertile soil of the Palmetto State.

This Southern Fried Maginot Line is the last best chance to jump on the Mittmeister and the whole B - Team is lacing up their steel - toed boots and pounding nails into their soles as we speak. South Carolina is where Bush derailed McCain in 2000: and to say the above the belt tactics were outnumbered by those below the belt is both accurate and lame.

To buttress his own personal Alamo, Newt Gingrich picked up 5 million dollars from a single donor, to be funneled directly into ads to do to Romney what Romney did to him in Iowa. Cover your eyes kids: this won't be pretty. The guy who famously bragged, "I like to fire people," Mr. Bain Capital, is about to bump up against an entire slate of candidates not to mention a state, that feels the same way.

Not Newt himself, but Newt's Super PAC which has absolutely no connection to Newt. None. Whatsoever. At all. Totally separate entity. Super PAC. Such a guy thing. "My Super PAC is bigger than your Super PAC." Super PAC envy. And the candidate with the biggest Super PAC gets the girl.

Rick Perry has joined Gingrich in running a series of grisly ads assailing the front - runner as a vulture capitalist; guaranteed to rile Willard up so bad his talons will be itching for more carrion. And no, I'm not talking about Rick Santorum. The ads are so vicious that if the Barack Obama Re - election Campaign possessed an ounce of common human decency, they'd chip in a couple bucks. Then again, maybe they are.

The New York Times says Emmy - nominated comedian and writer Will Durst "is quite possibly the best political satirist working in the country today." Check out the website: Redroom.com to buy his book or find out more about upcoming stand - up performances. Or willdurst.com. Whatever.

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