Comments from the Great Recession 2010

I thought this comment from a reader of the NYT article about blacks in Memphis, TN (and elsewhere) are facing much dire economic loss in this Great Recession than others. Many would comment on bleeding heart stories are shout their racist rants, for the sole purpose of being assholes. But some readers actually read the articles, and pick up and share some insightful points about what they read. This is one of them.

23.
Scott Enk
Hales Corners, WI
May 31st, 2010
10:38 am

How much more economic calamity must "ordinary" middle-class and working Americans, African-American and otherwise, suffer before we stop letting those in power divide and set us against one another by race, gender, sexual orientation, and the like? If this "Great Recession" teaches us nothing else, it should teach us that we need a New New Deal where working people in America are once again on top, where real democracy prevails, and where people, not money or corporations, rule.

Remember, as if you need any more reminders in this "Great Recession," that what has been happening to so many once-prosperous African-Americans in Memphis *can* happen to you. There needs to be a *real* (yes, European-style) "safety net" for us all--as well as an economy and a government that once again works for all of us who must really work for a living. Let's not let ourselves be divided by race, religion, or otherwise in fighting our real foes and demanding a truly fair economy. If that means a Second American Revolution, so be it. Or do you really want to follow the dubious lead of the boiled frog?Even though many white Americans, for example, who thus far have escaped any major pain from this "Great Recession" might still "think" "It can't happen to me" and regard such things as unemployment and foreclosure as evils that beset only the "lazy," the "Other," and the like, what's happening in Memphis to its once-proud African-American middle class should be, not cause for avoidance, but for action.

Instead of letting the rich and powerful divide us and continue to play us against each other while the clowns on top keep laughing all the way to the bank while they continue to impoverish the rest of us, we "ordinary" Americans all need to unite and fight the *real* enemies of our prosperity, our nation, and our way of life. These enemies are not similar Americans of races and backgrounds other than our own, but, rather, are still those Theodore Roosevelt called "malefactors of great wealth": Goldman Sachs and others in "high finance," BP and others in "Big Oil" (let's not even get started *here* about the dire economic as well as environmental dangers BP's continuing disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is), and other businesses that have abused working people and their families and communities. Remember also their enablers and cheerleaders among the likes of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Republican Party, and, yes, in the Democratic Party as well. Remember that just as the dangerous "pro-business" policies of the last 30 years or so have ruined the lives and futures of millions of Americans of *all* races to enrich a greedy few, most of the rest of us--yes, dear reader, that includes *you* and those about whom you care--are just a layoff notice, a few missed paychecks, away from ending up in the very same place where the poor and welfare recipients that you and I have often been urged to fear and despise have found themselves.

"Tea Partiers" and others who still somehow think that progressive economic and social policies are a threat rather than part of a vital safety net that we need to expand, not shrink further, especially need to remember that Horatio Alger is not only dead, but also that he wrote fiction. We really *are* in increasingly dire economic and other straits together. As Benjamin Franklin observed, we can hang together or hang separately.

Marissa Miller Nude In GQ, Dave Chappelle Is Back, and more on TWIYT #54

Lemonade Movie Trailer The Face of Laid-off 21st Century America

Cowboys, Cops, and Lawyers - We Love Em All!

TV will always be regarded historically for its signature contribution to 20th century life: the sitcom. But TV will hopefully be remembered for its legacy in the drama that underscores our national theme: good guys and bad guys. Whether it be Bush or Obama ranting about Iran's leader, or Teabaggers ranting about almost anything that spouts an us vs. them mindset, all of it comes from America's obsession with good guys and bad. It started for many of us with the cowboy with the white hat. The bad guy always had the black or dark hat - symbolizing and reinforcing not only racial stereotypes surrounding perceived morality, but also of racial demonizations based on good and bad. This symbol represented the basic moral values - in the form of westerns - that sprayed over the silver screen of the 1930s and 40s, and transported itself to the boob tubes of the 50s and early 60s.

But, around 1960, a new concept was forming - one of law and order. The country was facing a dangerous threat in the form of a nuclear-armed and space-bound Soviet Union. Domestically, political unrest was percolating, first with the civil rights movement, then with the anti-war and later student peace movement of the mid-60s. Television was taking it in, while at the same time proposing a defense - super-sleuth lawyers like Perry Mason, always-get-their-man cops like Steve McGarrett. To cap the Soviet threat, spy shows of all sorts from I-Spy to Get Smart to It Takes a Theif took law and order to the international stage. The name's Bond . . . James Bond.

But nowadays the name is McCoy - Jack McCoy. The evolution of crime shows, starting with the infamous Perry Mason (whose actor ironically went on the play the cop side of the story in the 70s show Ironside), evolving further with the endless list of detective shows in the 70s (we still call the cops 5-0), and maturing into the ultimate disco-era/greed is good era shows Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law and NYPD Blue of 25 years ago, they nurtured perhaps the greatest crime TV show of our time, Law & Order. Unique, and taking the best of what all these shows had to offer, we have both the accuracy and reality of a police crime-solving drama and the legal procedure of criminal prosecution and court adjudication in one bowl of soup. Add to that perhaps the best and most seasoned and professional actors on TV today, and it's no wonder that this show ran like its moral and quality equivalent of the western genre, Gunsmoke.

But new shows for this franchise will be no more. NBC, in its infinite wisdom, has cancelled the show after 20 years, tying it with Gunsmoke as the longest-running TV show ever. Both deserve it. But I think most would agree that Law & Order, the masterpiece of a lot of ingredients to an already-improving recipe, deserved the gold on this one. From here, TV goes downward to a spiral - the end of TV as we or our parents knew it. On-demand, internet, TIVO, Netflix programming will become the norm going forward. A technological advancement. But a production and content loss we will soon regret.

Rest in peace, L&O. You were the best of the best in network television.

Philadelphia PA BEWARE: You Will Probably BE The Next Big Venue for the Tea Party Movement

Don't think you aren't. Around the 5 Pennsylvania counties surrounding Philadelphia, there is a simmering and already-growing Tea Party-style political movement that will make its weight felt in 2010. Probably as early as next month, perhaps already in some specific pockets of Montgomery, Bucks and Chester counties, and definitely as soon as this November's elections, which should have some interesting showings of a similar kind nationwide.

But Philadelphia is more specific, and a bellweather for things to come, but not good things. Like many in the country's metropolitan regions, there is a fear-base self-pity allergy of psuedo-xenophobia. This virus brings on the belief, however misfigured, that government is the source of all its problems, that we need to take government back, that we need less government while we're at it, and let people have the individual, or states have the indivdual, right to live and plan their life as they please, that we should in essence let the "strong survive", while the weak try to figure out or even understand their most basic of benefits or social covenants we as a nation long before FDR or even Abraham Lincoln swore that we would to ourselves give, that we would feed the poor, take care of the sick, and provide for the elderly. That we will take care and educate our children, and give families something to live for and build upon. No, we were not promised we would be rich. A few of us were promised 40 acres and a mule that was never received. A few more of us have treaties with our government which includes social and economic covenants we owed them, that have not all been fulfilled. We've also made promises to others, like those we have defeated, like Japan. Those for which we should never have been involved, like Iraq. Like many others for which we give billions in foreign aid, for purposes not all intended as good for them or for us citizens, that take our jobs away for lower pay and corporate greed. Corporations that often are from our country, and employ and are run by people like these Tea Partiers, or others like you.

Somewhere in the escape to suburbia in the late 1960s, the suburban populace, who previously thought themselves immune to the problems of the cities they left, realized that there was no escape from social progress. They had trouble reconciling with social change - change that they knew was long overdue, and now threatened to topple their lock on world dominance. It showed its worth for the first time in the early 1970s - the emergence of an post-colonial African bloc of nations blocking legislation in the U.N., and the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973 cutting off oil to the West. It was seen again in 1979 with the rise of the Ayatollah Khomeni in Iran, which spread fear that was no doubt particularly felt in the American Jewish community.

By the time of Reagan, this particular subgroup of America, the "silent majority", started enuciating their views openly on the government giving perceived preference to people with whom these folks do not feel they share a "heritage". A problem within that thinking is what, or whom they think they are, with respect to this "heritage". It is ironic, and a smack in the face, to watch lower-class ethnic Europeans (that would be you Italians, Irish, Jews and Poles that came to America between 1860-1920s) think that their "heritage" is being threatened by those of other desents, whether that be African, Native American, Mexican, or whatever that is not them. To the extent that, in 2010, they feel even more threatened and emboldened to set up vigilante shops where they can express their unhappiness towards all the classic conservative pitches, with in addition blaming all the woes of a superpower going mad since its sole ascendency in 1990 on one black man who becomes president a year and a half ago. Too much government is taking too much from us, we need less government, less regulation, more conservatism (which will likely evolve into less tolerance), even more than their GOP can deliver.

IF we have too little government, my question is who will protect us from them?

The Contract From America, which is being created Wiki-style by Internet contributors as a The Tea Party is being very careful not to ignite these fires, at least for now. Their Contract From America, a manifesto of what “the people” want government to do, mentions little in the way of social issues, beyond a declaration that parents should be given choice in how to educate their children. By contrast, the document it aims to improve upon — the Contract With America, which Republicans used to market their successful campaign to win a majority in Congress in 1994 — was prefaced with the promise that the party would lead a Congress that “respects the values and shares the faith of the American family.”

Tea Party leaders argue that the country can ill afford the discussion about social issues when it is passing on enormous debts to future generations. But the focus is also strategic: leaders think they can attract independent voters if they stay away from divisive issues.

“We should be creating the biggest tent possible around the economic conservative issue,” said Ryan Hecker, the organizer behind the Contract From America. “I think social issues may matter to particular individuals, but at the end of the day, the movement should be agnostic about it. This movement rose largely because the GOP failed to deliver on the party's core economic conservative ideology. To include social issues would be beside the point.”

As the Tea Party pushes to change the Republican Party, the purity they demand of candidates may have more to do with economic conservatism than social conservatism. Some Tea Party groups, for instance, have declined to endorse J. D. Hayworth, who has claimed the mantle of a fiscal conservative, in the Republican Senate primary in Arizona. But these groups find his record in Congress no more fiscally responsible than the man he seeks to oust, John McCain.

The Tea Party defines economic conservatism more strictly than most Republicans in Congress would. The Tea Party wants to do away with earmarks. The Contract, for example, includes a proposal to scrap the tax code and limit it to 4,543 words (same as the number in the original Constitution). It proposes capping growth in federal spending to inflation plus the percentage of population growth, and require a two-thirds majority for any tax increase.

Social issues still pack a wallop: a group of Democrats opposed to abortion rights could determine the fate of health care legislation in the House.

Experts like Lisa McGirr, a professor of history at Harvard and author of “Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right,” say that the Tea Party uses a kind of code to talk about social values. For instance, to emphasize a return to the strict meaning of the Constitution, they interpret that as a return to a Christian foundation. “When they talk about returning to the values of the Founding Fathers" she says, "they are talking about life as a social issue.”

Tea Party leaders champion states’ rights, holding dear the Tenth Amendment, which restricts the role of the federal government. An Independence Caucus questionnaire asks candidates for their views on Wickard v. Filburn, a SCOTUS decision that Tea Party groups say has been used to vastly expand federal powers. Interesting, Roe v. Wade, which superceded federal power over what had been up to the states to decide as a health and welfare issue within their own state and totally within the purview and intent of the Constitution for the states to regulate, does not come up. So while some may oppose gay marriage or abortion, the Tea Party realizes that these issues can be assumed desirable to their target market than enunciated as the party's policy (via code as noted) and avoid social divisiveness which could break ranks. Surveys have shown, such as the one conducted by the Sam Adams Alliance, a Chicago-based Tea Party-friendly conservative organization, that the most important issues are the budget, the economy, and jobs. The Tea Party has learned from MoveOn.org and built its numbers online, focusing on economic conservatism issues which are core to its base and appealing to newcomers.

"Raising social issues risks fracturing the strength it has built. “Every social issue you bring in, you’re adding planks to your mission, and planks become splinters” ~ Frank Anderson, Independence Caucus of Utah.

With an African-American President in office, they're careful not to infuse race. But with time they will have to weigh in somehow on social issues like racial justice, especially in areas of economics, housing and employment. Money for housing will likely be a thorny issue, with the recent sub-prime mess receiving a lot of mis-coding for who is the bad guy. Some blamed it on people who couldn't afford the houses taking on more debt than they were 'entitled' to. This almost surely suggests minorities, illegal aliens, and people from other parts of the world who immigrated here (but are not European) who are sapping up our limited resources. In fact, too much of the sub-prime debt can be blamed on the finance industry itself, who gave money away, and those in higher income brakets who were buying million-dollar-plus homes in florida, las vegas, and california, and even new york city and DC, who then defaulted. This is in no small part the culprit in its hardest-hit places (Vegas, Miami/South Florida, Phoenix AZ), yet minorities in Detroit and North Philadelphia, who were not as easily able to capitalize on all this sub-prime money as their wealthier suburban neighbors, did not get the benefit. But, they are still blamed.

Unexpected support for gay marriage, and likely the growing acceptance of medical marijuana laws being passed in state after state, show the American public is most comfortable with a live and let-live social policy for coexisting with its neighbors. That still leaves a lot of problems undealt with, but at least our right to live pretty much in the level that we've become accostomed to, while eroding somewhat, is not denied to us. It seems cruel that so many Americans, after all we've been through to get to this point, and after all the failures of not just the last but preceding Republican Presidents to convince the populace that less government is better - it is NOT. People in a large, advanced and complex Earth society like ours needs some level of responsible and working government. It needs laws that protects its people, all of them, on a national, not state, level. The founding fathers formed this nation in an era of colonies and horse-drawn carriages, with mail carriers on horseback bringing the news and communication at its advanced level of the day. Their perception, and I give credit to our lawmakers for still sticking with successfully, could not have contemplated all that we now know as normal. They didn't have to - they knew that too. They intentionally created a flexible, a "living document". We should honor their intent by moving the original contract with America the way they intended: rationally, flexibly and forward.

Avoiding or trying to avoid voicing opinion on social subjects of interest so as not to take an opposing position that will likely alienate supporters is a highwire act of political proportions. The time will eventually arrive when one of them, perhaps an elected official of a township or city or state lesgislator, is asked to weigh in on a vote in their jurisdiction. By then, they will have to calibrate their message so as to rally their base but the message will be so narrow that they will not be able to avert the possibly of alienating their larger audience. Taking the highwire to balance is still yet to be one of their tricker moves yet.

Avoiding social issues can get Democrats over. People who are registered Democrats because of abortion are also totally freaking out about the debt. The strategy is not to appear too rigid, but more fiscally-conservative, but the hidden agendas on social issues are still there. The question for you voters is simple: Can you trust them?

Editorial - Why Are We Being Bitchslapped Around These Days By The Man???

Yes we've been reluctant to admit it for some time, listening to talk about ignoring consipracy theories. Yet, more and more of us are realizing something's happening out there, somebody is controlling us and our welfare on Earth, beyond divine intervention and not by race or creed. It is economic-stratum-based at least, and a secret order over and above us at worse. But whatever it is, it is controlling world events, world prosperity, and directing traffic for the world all at the same time and to its benefit, but likely many of our perils.

There seems to be powers out there that are no longer complacent with being silently in the background. Realizing their real capital is at risk, they are no longer in the shadows; in fact they are very much out there, whether it be forcing politicians out of office, whether it be laying off millions of high-paid citizens here in favor of much lower-paid citizens of somewhere else, and doing the same thing or more. There is a shift in currency from the world economic power centers of just 20 years ago to other areas of the globe, but no booms at the moment to speak of. So where is the hotspot of money, jobs, power, economic prosperity these days? You can head to Asia, or as quiet as it's kept Africa, The Middle East, Australia, even some parts of Europe. One thing for sure, it's not North America, it may be Brazil in the South though. It is not published, it is hard to know the center. And how to get there.

But we should be concerned. Not for what appears is being done now, but the impact - for decades, perhaps centuries to come - it will have on the future of our children and grandchilden. Our media is becoming the ultimate anchorman of our lives. The government is running the show like a giant computer, calibrating the message. Business in the private sector is nothing less than ocean piracy. And they criticize the Somalian prirates!! At least they're honest and open about their piracy, while the real pirates break all the rules under the cover of law and until recently openess. Nowadays they're so desparate to get as much as they can, they have no problem demanding that we make them a loan, while they steal what little we have from them from our pockets. I wonder when we'll get our money back??

new york city transit like it is -

How we get from here to there, day or night, 24/7....