The Jungle, Still

"Dr. Winslow seems to think that the first dollar is a male dollar, and the second a female dollar, and that when the man puts them into the bank together they reproduce nickels and dimes, which by and by grow up to be dollars as big as their daddy! He doesn't understand that the thing he calls interest is wealth produced by another man and which the other man had taken from him!" — a socialist organizer at a debate, in a scene from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, 1906

I just read Upton Sinclair's classic early twentieth-century novel The Jungle. After reading excerpts long ago in school, I picked up the book from a stack of paperbacks being discarded. I soon discovered that there was somewhat recently issued a version of The Jungle that restored the novel to its original longer form as published in a number of socialist publications at the time. The author had shortened and edited the novel at the behest of his commercial publisher, and proceeded to make quite a name for himself and his work; I wound up reading the longer, long-ignored work, "The Uncensored Original Edition."

The Jungle is the story of an extended Lithuanian family immigrating to the United States to find work in the meatpacking plants of robber-baron era Chicago. The book is usually remembered as an exposé of the harsh working conditions and disgusting, dangerous food-handling operations then prevalent. If you think e-coli on spinach is a big deal, you ain't seen nothing yet compared to what is detailed in Sinclair's accessible, engaging read. But what I discovered is that The Jungle is misremembered, perhaps by nature of its shortening, as quite a different book than it actually is. Because while The Jungle is indeed an exposé and a heart-breaking story of a family's suffering, the book is actually a book about socialism and how one downtrodden worker comes to understand not only why he is downtrodden but how he finds hope in building solidarity with his kind for a new, revolutionary world.

The Jungle is no doubt dated. Its writer displays all too much of the extreme racism and misogyny of white America ca the turn of that century. But its vision of socialism is simple, clear and very inspiring. The pre-World War I American socialism it depicts is ascendant, and not yet confronted by the complexities of the post-WWI revolutionary era. But it is an amazing book.

Setting aside for a moment the tragedy that over a hundred years after its writing the same problems persist with the same vital arguments remain valid, The Jungle is an amazingly relevant read. Check out this passage reporting the fury of the book's hero, Jurgis Rudkus, upon discovering that nothing under capitalism is as it seems:

"The store-keepers plastered up their windows with all sorts of lies to entice you; the very fences by the wayside, the lamp-posts and telegraph-poles were pasted over with beastly lies. The great corporation which employed you lied to you, and lied to the whole country — from top to bottom, it was nothing but one gigantic lie. The whole country was a lie; its freedom was a lie, a snare for pauper workingman; its prosperity was a lie of rich employers, its justice was a lie of grafting politicians."

The book concludes with a rousing explication of socialist ideals, including a thinly disguised speech by iconic socialist leader Eugene Debs. Reading this section I wanted to jump up and down with excitement at how clearly and inspiringly the case for socialism is made. And not the dumbed down, prettified vision of socialism we've come to associate with the welfare states of Europe, either: this is socialism as an egalitarian society where the bosses and their state have been overthrown, and where economic justice rules and oppression is finally overcome.

It was a revelatory read, and a reminder that the ground being tread by today's social justice movements has been tread before.

The State of Obama

What a difference a year makes, but I just can't join the chorus of finding anything President Obama said last night in his third State of the Union address interesting or acceptable. Why pretend you're happy with crumbs when you can see that there's a whole cake there for the taking?

After listening to Rmoney, Swingrich, the hateful Rick Santorum and the kooky racist Ron Paul for several weeks, of course at first one is struck hearing Obama's intelligent, measured words by a sense of relief. He's trying to connect with people, and mostly in a positive way. The dogwhistle of blaming poor people or black people or immigrants or gays (yes, Rick Santorum, that would be you) for the nation's woes is gone. The intentional lies are notably absent, or at least prettier. He invokes fairness. He brings up eminently reasonable proposals. He doesn't sound like a carnival barker (hi Newt!), and his emotional range usually seems genuine instead of learned in front of a mirror while listening to Ronald Reagan tapes (hi Mittens!).

But we are so numbed by the extreme-right horror show on the Republican side of the aisle that I think it's too easy to be distracted by our wishful thinking into missing what is actually going on.

Last night President Obama beat the same war drums we're used to from Republicans. That line about "all options being on the table" regarding Iran — recently echoed, by the way, by liberal darling Elizabeth Warren — is an actual threat to pre-emptively attack a foreign sovereign state. It's based on stale warmed-over hype recipes from the Bush era about Iraq. And speaking of George W. Bush, even that warmongering mass murderer called for a democratic Palestinian state in his last State of the Union address. Last night Obama mentioned only the American commitment to Israel, the country currently engaged in massive ethnic cleansing against Palestinians in both the Occupied Territories and Israel proper. Obama is actually war mongering. He is actually engaged in covert wars and assassinations. How could it get worse than that?

Obama doesn't brag about the policies of repression and the stifling of dissent that his government is deeply pursuing. But the fact that he didn't mention them in his speech doesn't mean they're not happening. We cannot just look away and pretend that these things could be worse. They're already about as worse as they can be. He signed the NDAA that potentially guts due process. He had a teen-aged American citizen assassinated along with his more notorious American citizen father. His law enforcement agents have waged campaigns of harassment against peace and international solidarity activists. Many believe the fall's national campaign of repression against Occupy encampments was coordinated from the very top halls of so-called law enforcement. When he uses the nebulous term "immigration reform," what he really means is deporting more of our neighbors.

To those of us who wished for real national healthcare in this country, in his speech last night Obama bragged about his health insurance reform being kept in the private profit-making sphere. We can't keep telling ourselves that we had to give up the so-called public option only because of congressional horse-wrangling over votes: the truth is we didn't get it because Obama didn't want it. He's not lying to us: we're lying to ourselves.

In his speech he parroted the same ridiculous small government/tax-cutting rhetorical nonsense the Republicans play. He is absolutely pandering to Republicans. And while it could be argued that mere pandering is harmless, remember how just this last year his administration abandoned environmental protections and advances in contraception. Over and over we tell ourselves that Obama is pandering to the right when it's actually the left that is being pandered and condescended to. And oh yes, that payroll tax holiday he keeps waving about: that is the death of Social Security as we know it. We won't find that out till later, of course.

He can claim that he wants "fairness" but I'm not seeing it. The deck is still stacked in favor of what we euphemistically call "Wall Street." And let's be clear: this is not because Obama is a bad person as the Republicans would have it, but because he is a creature of the 1%. He is acting in his own interests, and in the interests of his friends and colleagues. You and I are not included in that list, no matter how many folksy e-mail appeals to wish Joe, Jill & Michelle a happy birthday that you receive from the Obama reelection campaign. It's really time to stop projecting values on Obama that he just doesn't have.

Almost two weeks ago my local Brooklyn occupy group, Occupy/Ocupemos Sunset Park, had a wildly successful event for Martin Luther King's birthday (I promise a full report soon). I gave a short presentation toward the end of the program. These are from my notes for my remarks:

"2012 is an election year, and somebody is going to promise you that your life will be better if you vote for them. You're free to vote for whoever you like, but my guess is that you're going to be disappointed. Because democracy, the people exercising the right to live and work together fairly and justly, is not really about elections.
History does not remember Dr. King running for office. History does not record who Dr. King voted for. What History remembers is Dr. King leading the people to go out in the street to take what belongs to them. Dr. King showed us the links between big issues like racism and injustice, enforced poverty and the outrages of war. But he also showed us the importance of coming together right here in our own communities to fight for what is right. If you're waiting for a politician to save you you're going to be waiting a very long time. This is up to us."

Again and again we are disappointed in who we vote for. Hell, I argued for supporting Obama last time around even as I suspected this disappointment would return. For three years now I've also watched self-identified progressives struggle with Obama. Over many issues in the last three years anger welled up against him from the left. I am embarrassed that at times I argued against that anger. And yet now as the likes of Rmoney and Swingrich gather like bathroom mildew, these progressives return to the circle of wagons around Obama.

We think it will be worse under the Republicans than under Obama. But is that really true? What if the worse is already true. When Obama is looking to compare himself to... Teddy Roosevelt, this is a sign that we should heed. For people who think of themselves as 21st-century progressives that is called aiming very very low. I read a bitter comment on a blog today: Obama supporters "would defend Hitler, if he had only been a Democrat: 'He only killed 6 million Jews... hell look how many he left alive!'" A little harsh perhaps, but it makes a certain point. Where does the constant need to apologetically find Obama's silver lining come from? Weakness, I think.

I'm actually not at the point of telling anyone not to vote. I guess in some ways I still hold the position that since elections will have one of two winners, it's not more harmful voting for a lesser evil than wasting a dollar on a lottery ticket, in the off chance it winds up making a slight difference. But I am more and more convinced that as long as we devote our energy to a game that is designed to disappoint us, we will get only what we're asking for. Asking for a lesser evil is still asking for evil. Why not ask for something one actually wants? Excuse me, why not take what one is actually entitled to! In 2008 this seemed like an abstraction. In 2012, with the sea change in consciousness called Occupy Wall Street, it doesn't seem like an unimaginable goal to make the elections irrelevant. Maybe, just maybe, we're no longer weak.

I'm not going to spend the months between now and November fretting about the election. I'm going to spend it trying to organize my community, trying to spread the possibilities of the Occupy movement. Obama's not going to save us. We're going to save ourselves.

Déjà Vu or, Better Late than Never

"[C]ivilized society is split into antagonistic, and, moreover, irreconcilably antagonistic classes. ...

In a democratic republic, Engels continues,"wealth exercises its power indirectly, but all the more surely", first, by means of the “direct corruption of officials” (America); secondly, by means of an “alliance of the government and the Stock Exchange" (France and America). At present, imperialism and the domination of the banks have “developed” into an exceptional art both these methods of upholding and giving effect to the omnipotence of wealth in democratic republics of all descriptions. ...

The exploiting classes need political rule to maintain exploitation, i.e., in the selfish interests of an insignificant minority against the vast majority of all people. The exploited classes need political rule in order to completely abolish all exploitation, i.e., in the interests of the vast majority of the people, and against the insignificant minority consisting of the modern slave-owners — the landowners and capitalists."

—V.I. Lenin, 1917, "The State and Revolution"

What Is the Steve Jobs Legacy?

"Think different. Steve Jobs didn't make your iPad, Chinese kids did."

Since the products of Steve Job's Apple Corporation are by and large what has made the internet what it is today, it's not surprising that outpourings of grief for Mr. Jobs have been front and center on the internet since he died yesterday, far too young, of the dread pancreatic cancer. By all accounts he was a brilliant man who truly changed the world in ways that define our current era. I currently produce this blog on an iMac, and my professional career is currently based on working on Macs. I love my iPod, and the fact that I have no iPhone to love is a product of my deficient personal economy not aspiration. I post this graphic I found not to disrespect the memory of Mr. Jobs nor to demean his achievements. But I was immediately struck by how direct and important the message of this graphic is, and how superficial and partial are so many of the ubiquitous encomiums to the legacy of Steve Jobs. I certainly don't post this graphic to make anyone feel guilty about their Apple products since I'm guessing nobody but the Amish can claim a life free of the products plucked from the trees of universal corporate exploitation.

To my mind the statement of this graphic is less than a condemnation of Mr. Jobs — though a proprietary relationship with factories employing child or slave labor is highly problematic — but more a condemnation of us as consumers for not remembering that without the workers, children or adults, laboring to produce these miraculous little machines, Steve Jobs was nothing but a man with great ideas. I have my cool iMac and iPod not just because of his imagination, but because flesh and blood people put these things together with craftsmanship and know-how. And the fact that I was able to afford these things is probably thanks to the fact that other people made less money than I to do the hard work of making these things real.

Pondering all of this I did come to another realization: every time in the last twenty-some-odd years I've found myself out of work, I could blame Mr. Jobs and his creations. And here is something not often stated about our current economic condition.

In the 1980s I supported myself as a photo-typesetter. It was a valued craft. The development of desktop publishing via MacIntosh toward the end of that decade killed the typesetting business, and with it my skill-set. I transitioned first to pre-press, and then to the production and creative end of computer-based print graphics. But I wound up working in the music business, and soon iPods and iTunes killed the demand for CDs, and down went the music business starting in the mid-2000s and with it my replacement career and skill-set. Today I am slightly underemployed, working freelance in the print newspaper business at a much lower level than I was before. With the continued internet revolution and the development of the iPad, the grim reaper has his eye fixed firmly on the business model that supports me. I'm not sure at all what I will do when print design finally bites the dust or when the last newspaper goes all digital.

Don't get me wrong, I love the modern technology. I consume it. But talking about the economic crisis, if manufacturing is largely gone from the U.S., and soon fields like mine which once employed millions are obsolete memories, what indeed will we all be doing for work in the future? If computerization and automation combined with outsourcing so sharply reduce the number of people needed to keep the world functioning, it strikes me that all this nonsense the government is play-acting through about "job creation" is so much missing the point. With the one-two punch of technological improvement and the globalization of labor, there really is less and less for Americans to do. Of course, stupid Republicans, the government is going to be bigger, because that's getting to be one of the last places the jobs are. Along with serving bad, robotic food and working for banks or insurance companies to find ways of ripping people off of their money.

It seems inevitable that the much-lauded creative engine of capitalism would contain the seeds of its own obsolescence. Steve Jobs was very very smart: yes, visionary even. But not smart enough to avoid creating a world divided into soon-to-be-unemployed consumers with useless, outdated skills, and exploited, regimented child slaves working their tiny skilled fingers by the piece.

Graphic snagged from Lenin's Tomb.

"Don't Be Afraid to Call It a Revolution"

I spent part of the afternoon at the Occupy Wall Street encampment in downtown Manhattan today. It's a few hundred people gathered in a small paved park roughly midway between Wall Street and the World Trade Center site. I found the gathering truly inspiring. It seems to get its energy from the overwhelming presence of young people, but it's drawn plenty of the not-so-young; while it seemed to be majority white it was by no means exclusively so. Having watched three years of so-called Tea Party protests on the news it was utterly refreshing to see — even on signs challenging President Obama — a complete and total absence of the dogwhistle racism foundational to the teabaggers' modus operandi. Here was real protest about economic issues (as well as social justice ones). Significantly I saw many trade union activists identifying themselves as such.


I've read hype describing Occupy Wall Street as an attempt to bring the spirit of Egypt's Tahrir Square to the United States; and while this movement is much smaller than that, I thought there was a kernel of truth in that. The energy at the encampment is busy and exuberant: some people were playing music together, others grouped together energetically discussing the issues. The encampment seems alive with consciousness and awareness. The signs are clever and inspiring: "Feel It Trickle Down?" "Arise and Seize the Day." Significantly just yesterday 700 Occupy Wall Street protesters were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge as the city's repressive forces displayed their no tolerance for disruption of traffic. Despite that act of repression the spirit of the Occupiers seemed completely undaunted.



I suspect the weather will shortly curtail the momentum of the Occupy movement, though a solidarity march this Wednesday is scheduled to bring the encampment the support of unionized workers and groups like the Working Families Party. Hopefully the spirit of this exciting movement can be kindled throughout the winter and bring us a real American Spring next year. It thrills me that young people are proclaiming "Don't Be Afraid to Call it a Revolution." Could people be starting to finally wake up?



I thought this protester dressed as the Hindu goddess Mother Kali was brilliant: Change Is Coming, indeed. I like how she's managed to so succinctly unite spiritual and political consciousness in one playful statement.

Occupy Wall Street has issued a declaration, crafted by a consensus gathering at the encampment. You can read the full text at Dangerous Minds. It was also published in their "The Occupied Wall Street Journal" broadsheet, just printed and being passed out for free at the encampment. In part it begins, "As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right..."

All photos by me. Click on them to see them larger.

About That Republican "No"

I've not been particularly inclined to defend Mr. Obama of late, but I am singularly horrified at the small thing that happened to him yesterday. President Obama has been promising for weeks to deliver a "bold" jobs plan in a speech after fake Labor Day. It will no doubt be insufficient, and will no doubt go over like a lead zeppelin in the Republican House. It will no doubt have many rousing platitudes about American workers and no doubt fail to combat the rampant union-busting so prevalent today or actually have much an effect on today's runaway unemployment. But never mind that. It turns out he wants to make a really big deal out of this speech and sent a note calling for a Joint Session of Congress before which he could deliver his address. The request for such a session is a ritual formality, always granted.

But this time Speaker of the House John Boehner said "no, ni**er know your place." Well he actually only said "no," but it's entirely obvious what he meant. Those of us listening for the dogwhistle can hear it very well, thank you, even when it is meant for certain other ears. Congressional historians reached by the NY Times say that such a thing has never happened before. The orange weeper Mr. Boehner made a lame excuse about (unspecified) votes scheduled for that very moment that could not, apparently, be postponed. Although nobody officially mentioned it, Wednesday is also apparently the time that the Republican 2012 Presidential clowncar will be holding one of its early debates at the "library" of their vile hero Reagan in California. Apparently the dishonest pontifications of a bunch of right-wing bigots is of more import than the federal jobs policy at a time of economic crisis.

Apparently the communications between Boehner and Obama were tense, and Boehner suggested the following day; initially Obama refused, and then, of course, he acquiesced to a Thursday appearance before Congress. Thursday is also the NFL kickoff, so fewer people will be wanting to watch national policy on teevee. The rightwing commentators went on the attack, accusing Obama of using his office to "campaign."

I find in this small episode an encapsulation of much of the tragedy of the Obama administration. In his eminently reasonable way Obama is busy talking about "bipartisan proposals," and the Republicans are saying "fuck you" and all but announcing their intention to disregard him entirely. And yet Obama brushes it off. And smiles, and scrambles to fashion some compromise that pulls some faint shadow of a hopeful political plan into a contrived and dangerously inadequate imitation plan that leaves the problem unsolved, him looking weak, and the right wing chortling all over themselves with unconstrained glee.

Maybe that's all that can be accomplished right now, who knows. But here's the thing. Appeasement doesn't work. Hitler invades Poland anyway; London gets bombed.

In the past three years it's been plain as day what the nature of much of the opposition to President Obama really is. The racist nature of the Republican party, both its conservative mainstream and extremist tea-bagger fringe, is clear to anybody who's not desperately trying to convince themselves otherwise. All that crap about the so-called Tea Party being mere economic conservatives, it's a lie. And the Republicans are treating our first African-American president as they have treated no president before, with palpable contempt and disregard.

President Obama was smart enough to know that he needed the energy of outraged progressives to get elected, along with all sorts of other constituencies. Who knows, he may even be smart enough to get himself reelected despite the shithole the economy is in, who knows. But it is painful to watch him transformed by Republican contempt into a Stepin-Fetchit caricature. Read the anti-Obama comments on any political website. There is some incisive criticism from the left here and there, and some programmatic disagreement from the right that is not based on lies and dishonesty. But most of it has turned into derisive objectification of his arrogance, cluelessness, spinelessness, or teleprompter habits. While I find myself disagreeing with his policies over and over again, it's painfully obvious that much of the criticism of Obama consists of sixteen-dollar-words covering up what is merely contempt for an uppity ni**er considered to be something only slightly more impressive than a trained monkey. In becoming a magnet for the disappointment of the American people, Obama is increasingly the catalyst for an explosion of white racist resentment. After the bumbling incoherence of President Bush, people are outraged about Obama's teleprompter? I don't buy it one bit.

And now, in advance, the Republican leader has said to Obama, "we don't really care what you have to say." They are not willing to offer even the ritual respect that is the glue that holds polite society together. As Chauncey DeVega on the brilliant "We Are Respectable Negroes" blog writes, Boehner just pulled a "boy you best get off the sidewalk and let a white man pass moment." And President Obama stepped down into the gutter and let Boehner pass. Will he call them out in his speech? It's nice to think about. I'll be very surprised if it happens.

We can do so much better. Pretending that what is happening is not actually happening will do us no good. America needs to have this confrontation: Obama's attempt to keep his hands clean seems to me aiming very very low. The Democratic and Republican parties need to be split asunder. Let the racists organize their party openly. Let the corporatists from both parties unite and try to take it all back. And let the vast majority of working people discover their own strength and power. Let the racism and the anti-gay bigotry and the thievery of the rich be openly condemned, and then let it be smashed.

Not papered over. Smashed.

Down So Low

My my. Thank goodness our political leaders solved the economic crisis on Monday because otherwise Thursday's news might be, um, really bad.

Here's a lovely song from the great Tracy Nelson to take our minds off our problems. The lyrics aren't so relevant but the title sure is.

Neville Chamberlain Announces Bipartisan Deal on Peace

Here's the video footage of the quote I posted the other day. Below, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler modestly notes his commitment to compromise.


Oh wait, is that the right photo? No matter, same difference. And this shameful appeasement of teabagger extremists will have the same result on preserving the economy of American working people as Neville Chamberlain's appeasement had on peace. Have you ever seen jowls McConnell smile like that before?

Fascinatingly, only half of the Democratic members of the House voted for this travesty today: the bill belongs to the President and his new Republican allies.

A Pathetic Little Distraction

This unremarkable e-mail arrived in one of my in-boxes today. It's from the official Obama reelection campaign committee, Obama for America. It doesn't ask for money, surprisingly, but it touts the President's plan to make cars more fuel efficient. It pissed me the hell off. A lot; and not because of what it said...I stopped reading it part way through and didn't even bother finishing it for this blog post.

It pissed me off because this weekend the administration and its Democratic allies seem to have been busy doing absolutely nothing more than preparing a massive appeasement of the tea party extremists over the fake debt ceiling issue, and this pathetic e-mail arrives in my box insulting the intelligence of people who once voted for Obama — yes, that includes me — with its lame attempt to distract its audience with table scraps when a massive betrayal of American social programs is in the offing. It is utterly cynical and shameless. And I'm pissed off at myself for falling into the trap of thinking in some small corner of my consciousness that maybe the movement of people that swept Obama to power would be enough to actually change anything at all when the right-ward trajectory of American politicians for decades is plain for all to see. This sad little e-mail is embarrassing not for what it says but for what it doesn't say, which is anything relevant at all to a watershed moment in American politics.

Take me off your mailing list please.

On Congressional Debt Ceiling Negotiations

"The settlement of the Czechoslovakian problem, which has now been achieved is, in my view, only the prelude to a larger settlement in which all Europe may find peace. This morning I had another talk with the German Chancellor, Herr Hitler, and here is the paper which bears his name upon it as well as mine (waves paper to the crowd - receiving loud cheers and "Hear Hears"). Some of you, perhaps, have already heard what it contains but I would just like to read it to you ..." — Neville Chamberlain, British Prime Minister, on the Munich accord of 1938, announcing how in giving Hitler what he wanted (ie, Czechoslovakia), he had prevented war in Europe.

Thank God John Boehner, President Obama, and Harry Reid are negotiating with the Tea Party to prevent an economic catastrophe! What could go wrong?

Today in Corporate Outrage... A Special Edition of News from the Malabar Front

So here's what I noticed, when I had, um, a little time on my hands. Two toilet paper rolls, purchased a couple months apart. Same brand...that would be Scott Tissue. (Creepily, I've also just noticed the headline on the Scott brands site is "Bring home some new family values." Fucking social conservatism catchwords from paper designed to clean your butt, ugh.) Anyway, in our economic-crisis-ridden world where the pundits and economists swear inflation isn't a problem — not a problem enough to add a Cost-of-Living-Increase to social security benefits anyway — you can plainly see that the cheap bastards at Scott, known as an economy brand, have shortened their roll of toilet tissue by about half an inch. Now, depending on how you, um, use this product, you're probably not going to miss that half an inch. But somebody's paying a lot of attention to what that savings has gone to...wiping out Scott's falling rate of profit.

Scott's parent company is Kimberly Clark. Speaking of not missing half an inch, Kimberly Clark's CEO Thomas J. Falk made approximately $9 million dollars last year. Poor guy, he didn't get a raise from the previous year either! And speaking of a lot of crap, in the first quarter of 2011 Kimberly Clark did five billion dollars in business, up from last year. On the other hand their actual profits are down. Maybe with all the money they're saving they can buy a billboard in Times Square like Charmin did.

A quote from George Orwell's 1984 is in order:

"As short a time ago as February, the Ministry of Plenty had issued a promise (a 'categorical pledge' were the official words) that there would be no reduction of the chocolate ration during 1984. Actually, as Winston was aware, the chocolate ration was to be reduced from thirty grammes to twenty at the end of the present week. All that was needed was to substitute for the original promise a warning that it would probably be necessary to reduce the ration at some time in April. ...

As though in confirmation of this, a trumpet call floated from the telescreen just above their heads. However, it was not the proclamation of a military victory this time, but merely an announcement from the Ministry of Plenty. ...

It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grammes a week. And only yesterday, [Winston] reflected, it had been announced that the ration was to be reduced to twenty grammes a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it. Parsons swallowed it easily, with the stupidity of an animal. The eyeless creature at the other table swallowed it fanatically, passionately, with a furious desire to track down, denounce, and vaporize anyone who should suggest that last week the ration had been thirty grammes. Syme, too-in some more complex way, involving doublethink, Syme swallowed it. Was he, then, alone in the possession of a memory?"

Don't worry, there's no inflation! The economy is recovering!

Vampires Are Real

Today fifty "bipartisan" U.S. senators and President Obama himself were all excited because they're reaching a potential solution to the legislative impasses presented by the need to extend the U.S. debt ceiling that will allow the government to meet its bills. And — surprise! — the solution is some variant of the despicable Simpson-Bowles plan that Obama had contracted out to a bunch of right-wing politicians acting as consultants last year. The new potential deal is the work of the hilariously named "Gang of Six" coalition of conservative Republicans and blue-dog Democrats.

While the actual details seem not to have been formally announced, they don't seem quite so hilarious: the so-called compromise seems to actually include across-the-board tax...cuts, including for the super rich, supposedly offset by a rewriting of the tax code to eliminate deductions and loopholes. And the deal includes cutbacks in all the social programs that Obama claimed he would defend: medicare, medicaid, social security, and even the half-assed healthcare reform. The differences between this bipartisan bill in the Senate and the teabagger/Republican bill in the House (that Obama has promised to veto) are only of degree, not principle.

So what does that mean exactly? Well I will tell you.

A few years ago I worked in the music business. Although I have never been anything close to rich, I had a job — a career even — that paid me more money than I thought I would ever make, at least in my last year there. I worked for that company for sixteen years in the end, after over a decade of what would look to most people like marginal employment elsewhere. I never thought I'd be able to afford to own my place of residence, certainly not in a city like New York. Well strange things happened: my mother was almost killed by medical malpractice. After springing back to life after selling all of her belongings, we had to change from end-of-life planning to planning for the future. It was the height of the housing bubble, and an elderly woman with a microscopic income from a pension and social security, albeit with a lump of cash from selling her belongings, and a middle-aged guy with a terrible credit history but an okay-paying job could get a mortgage and buy a house.

And so we did. The mortgage note was high, but all things considered, it seemed a once-in-a-lifetime chance, and we bought a place big enough for both of us in a working-class Brooklyn neighborhood. It turned out we could afford it, although it wasn't easy. It turns out that the tax benefit to owning your own home is what makes it possible for people like me without money to spare. A whole bunch of money would come back in the beginning of each year, just when it needed to: The interest payments you make on your mortgage turn out to be deductible against your income.

Then, after sixteen years at my job, I got laid off. It was at the beginning of what became the horrible recession that the country (world?) still hasn't climbed out of.

I was out of work for five months, and lucky to get a freelance gig that I still have four years later, at something around half my previous pay. We still have the house, though my savings from the good years are just about gone. I pay the horribly ill-named Freelancers Union exorbitant fees for my own health insurance, and money is tight. (Thank God I got out of the credit card extortion racket and have no other debt.) But at the beginning of each year I'm busted: and that tax benefit is the thin green line that keeps me and my elderly and near-invalid mother housed. Here's what this exciting financial compromise means to me: these bloodsucking vampire politicians will take my home. There is no way that cutting my taxes by the amount being proposed will offset the losses from the elimination of the mortgage interest deductions. None. Unlike the rich people in our government, I don't have a cushion of cash. The economic crisis took all that from me already. It will be impossible to continue to pay the note. And guess what: since this is going to be the case for millions of "middle-class" people just like me, owning a home is no longer going to be feasible for anyone but the super rich. Which means my home will be unsellable.

This is the way the politicians want it.

They're trying their damnedest to come up with a pretty way to take our money for themselves. This is not the undoing of the sixties welfare state or the FDR new deal, this is the beginning of the undoing of every social advance since the late 19th-century confrontation between labor and the robber barons of industry.

Vampires walk the earth. And disturbingly, the vampires who want to replace the current vampire-in-chief are even more bloodthirsty. And half the country is cheering them on. And since when are "gangs," of six or any number, on anybody's side but their own?

Welcome to Zombie Land.

(Graphic is not from the government, but from the guilty-pleasure vampire soap opera "True Blood" on HBO).

Politicians Making Us Sweat

Today was a very hot day in New York City, and I had the day off from work; much needed emotionally though it was a non-paid furlough day: those modern-economy treats dispensed to freelancers during slow hot summers and slow holiday periods. Which is more than frustrating. I certainly never thought in my younger days that paid time off would be as obsolete as subway tokens.

Which makes it all the more frustrating to listen to all the liars lying on the teevee or radio on such an insufferably hot and humid day about this manufactured economic crisis. I'm not that good a psychic: how come nobody else sees that every word out of John Boehner's quivering tear-streaked mouth is a lie? And what is with Obama? His hair sure is gray. I guess all that stuff about defending certain basic principles was filed away in the same drawer with his opposition to wars.

I think what ultimately frustrates me is that it's so clearly a minority of people going through these horrible motions. Even if you buy the questionably democratic logic of the American electoral system, the Republican landslide of 2010 doesn't actually mean that a majority of Americans actually support their absurd positions. Why are they allowed to dictate the narrative on what's wrong with the economy and how to solve it?

If you page through the years of this blog, you'll see some gushingly enthusiastic posts for Obama. To my credit, always with a warning grain of salt, but to my embarrassment, I should have known better than what proved to be all my naive optimism about the capacity of the political system to right its wrongs. At the same time, I guess I'm personally encouraged that as much as what's going on is hard to watch, somewhat demoralizing and actually quite worrisome, I think my re-radicalization is absolutely, even if paradoxically, the fruit of the Obama era.

This last spring saw a wave of revolution sweep a huge swath through the Middle East; most of those revolutions remain unresolved and conflicted by internal and international contradictions. But it seems unlikely that eventually the momentum of resistance will not return to these shores, and maybe all of us who are reduced to the role of impotent spectators watching our future being sold to corporate America and its patrons will remember all the things that a few very smart people once knew. And next time, maybe we'll win.

(Vintage 1960s/70s Black Panther Party poster from the great Emory Douglas, the brilliant house graphic artist of the BPP.)

A Very Simple Explanation

Anyone, Democrat or Republican, who says recipients of government services like Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security should bear a share of "deficit relief" is saying that regular working people and poor people should be, in effect, paying higher taxes. "Giving ground" to this argument is an utter obscenity.

Listen to their words carefully: when politicians say no tax increases, what they mean is no tax increases for rich people or corporations. It's not complicated or hard to understand. It doesn't require a doctorate in economics. There's plenty of money around. They just don't want US to share it.

DSK & IMF: Rapists not Socialists

This smiling man standing in front of the fisted-rose logo of the French Socialists is Dominique Strauss-Kahn. He, of course, is the incredibly wealthy French businessman currently under house arrest in New York City for allegedly attempting to rape the hotel worker assigned to cleaning his room. I haven't discussed Mr. Strauss-Kahn's arrest here mostly because even the regular media seems ripe with repulsion over his alleged crime, and I didn't think there was much to add. I'm quite sorry he used his considerable wealth to buy his way out of Riker's Island jail: evidence once again of who has the power in our "free" society.

But I would just like to add one thing: Mr. Strauss-Kahn's rape attempt of the as yet publicly unnamed hotel worker is not unique; she herself is apparently an African immigrant, and Mr. Strauss-Kahn has years under his belt raping the people of Africa. Until he resigned in the wake of the charges against him, he was the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, an organization that functions something like a follow-up rapist to the poorer nations of the world. After countries in the second and third world have been robbed blind by international mega-capitalism, the IMF moves in to rape the impoverished corpses of these nations, ensuring that no matter what happens, these nations will remain naked and bleeding slaves to the rich nations of the world.

While I'm gratified to learn that DSK is at least a member of the right wing of the French Socialist Party, the very thought that such a monstrous individual with such a vile career would consider himself a socialist blows my mind. He was even once seen as a possibly successful socialist electoral challenger to the current French president. Here in the United States where "socialism" is something akin to a curse word, many people are confused about what a socialist might be. Let me say loud and clear that DSK is not it.

Let justice take its course. Hopefully he will stand trial and be convicted. Might I suggest he serve his punishment in the poorest prison in the poorest country the world can find?

Anti-war Anthems: "Ping Pong" by Stereolab

I first heard Stereolab's album "Mars Audiac Quintet" back in the mid 1990s when it came out. I was hooked on the poppy, quirky, synthy sound, but it took me a long time to zoom in on the lyrics delivered in a heavily accented and strangely deadpan voice. They're sung, like many Stereolab songs, almost as though you're not meant to understand them. But when I finally deciphered what Laetitia Sadier was singing about I was blown away. And now almost twenty years later, the lyrics of this song, "Ping Pong," continue to be remarkably apropos. I rediscovered their albums recently looking for some stuff to add to my iTunes, and was reminded how much I love their groove.

"it's alright 'cos the historical pattern has shown
how the economical cycle tends to revolve
in a round of decades three stages stand out in a loop
a slump and war then peel back to square one and back for more

bigger slump and bigger wars and a smaller recovery
huger slump and greater wars and a shallower recovery

you see the recovery always comes 'round again
there's nothing to worry for things will look after themselves
it's alright recovery always comes 'round again
there's nothing to worry if things can only get better

there's only millions that lose their jobs and homes and sometimes accents
there's only millions that die in their bloody wars, it's alright

it's only their lives and the lives of their next of kin that they are losing
it's only their lives and the lives of their next of kin that they are losing

it's alright 'cos the historical pattern has shown
how the economical cycle tends to revolve
in a round of decades three stages stand out in a loop
a slump and war then peel back to square one and back for more

bigger slump and bigger wars and a smaller recovery
huger slump and greater wars and a shallower recovery

don't worry be happy things will get better naturally
don't worry shut up sit down go with it and be happy"

Yes, that seems to be a vaguely Marxist analysis and critique of the cynicism behind the capitalist economic cycle of crisis, war, and dehumanization of the individual. C'mon people, even hipsters can see it.

About those "death panels"...

Turns out the Republicans were just projecting...brilliant video from The Agenda Project on the Republican budget proposals to eliminate Medicare.

A Question of Values, Continued

"In the last decade, the average income of the bottom 90 percent of all working Americans actually declined. Meanwhile, the top 1 percent saw their income rise by an average of more than a quarter of a million dollars each. That’s who needs to pay less taxes?

They want to give people like me a $200,000 tax cut that’s paid for by asking 33 seniors each to pay $6,000 more in health costs. That’s not right. And it’s not going to happen as long as I’m President. (Applause.)

This vision [the Republican proposal] is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact in America. Ronald Reagan’s own budget director said, there’s nothing “serious” or “courageous” about this plan. There’s nothing serious about a plan that claims to reduce the deficit by spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. And I don't think there’s anything courageous about asking for sacrifice from those who can least afford it and don’t have any clout on Capitol Hill. That's not a vision of the America I know. " — President Obama's deficit & budget speech today

I've been pretty angry at President Obama lately, and I expected to watch his speech today on the economic crisis feeling my blood pressure elevate, especially after the details are becoming known of some of the really awful concessions made to the Republicans and the teabagger fascists during the recent budget negotiations. But I have to say I did not hate most of this speech. While of course there is an element of pandering to the Republicans and their delusions, by and large he chose to defend a reasonably liberal (in the good sense), pro-social safety net agenda. As a number of perceptive if ultimately pro-capitalist commentators have observed (Jonathan Bernstein, Greg Sargent, Paul Krugman) Obama chose to put his arguments in moral terms, and in so doing launched a powerful attack on the horrifying proposal set forth by the Republicans and their Rep. Ryan. Time will tell how Mr. Obama's words actually play out. His speech concluded with his familiar calls for "bipartisan unity" which have been so problematic, so future pitfalls are not completely averted. Danger, deal-making ahead.

The current crisis reminds us of the inadequacies of the healthcare reforms that are unfolding even as they are besieged by the right. On the one hand real government-run national healthcare would have dealt with so many of the issues that continue to pop up; on the other hand there was no way in hell such a goal was to be realized, all things considered. Many of the issues we hoped healthcare would address such as cost seem to remain in the air as political footballs. And while Obama was quick to blame some of the deficit's rise on Bush's unfunded wars, he conveniently omitted mentioning his continuation and expansion of military adventurism. This teaches us that Obama and the Democrats are ultimately not the best guardians for the social safety net, such as it is.

But at a time when I expected Obama to throw a wet paper towel at the Republicans he actually returned their fire. And that gives me some hope. Not as much hope as a real alternative to the Tweedledee and Tweedledum seesaw of a system that is fully stacked against us would give me, but at least the white flag hasn't been raised.

A Question of Values

It's not as complicated as it's made out to be.

Sure, the economic ruin brought by decades of greed and mismanagement isn't imaginary. But thanks to two centuries of unbridled imperialism, this is the richest country in the world. The United States is not broke. Don't believe the hype. There's plenty of money. The problem is, the people with the money don't want to share, don't want to be told what to spend their money on. They want to spend money on making more money. Which means spending money on war is good, but spending money on healthcare is bad. And they think they have rights and privileges over the rest of us which means they think we should express our gratitude to them for sitting at the helm of the economy by paying our taxes quietly while letting them find ways out of paying theirs.

They have made a choice; and their choice is to make us sweep their crap off the floor.

The Republican long-term budget proposal, apparently unironically entitled "The Path to Prosperity," is an ideological broadside against what little is left of the old-fashioned liberal safety net. It's a roadmap for eliminating the government's deficit by eliminating social programs. It is an utter outrage. And the Republican maneuvering over the short-term budget threatening the economic shutdown of government, is just a preview. Led by the racist teabag lynchmob-in-waiting, the Republican party is seizing the moment to intimidate and frighten Americans into giving in to their outrageous demands. And one suspects that a good deal of Obama and the Democrat's posturing of opposition to the Republicans will give way to mewling capitulation.

The Republicans and their social conservative teaparty fascists have revealed their hand. But it doesn't have to go their way.

It's possible to choose the right thing. Stop those three wars. Repeal those tax cuts for millionaires. Nationalize healthcare and set the rates and costs of medical services. Rebuild the school system instead of selling it to profit-making charter school vampire. Pull back those outsourced jobs.

The economic crisis didn't happen: it was made, by people making bad choices. Which means all we have to do is make the right choices. It's not that hard.

About that Economic Crisis...

Of course the economic cost of the neocolonialist attack on Libya is probably not the first thing on the minds of the Libyans under fire. Regardless of the politics of populist dictator al-Qaddafi, most of the people fighting for him are surely doing what they regard as their patriotic duty. But until they start releasing the body counts, let's tally up the non moral costs of doing this dirty business:

The cost of a US F-15 fighter jet like the one just crashed or shot down over Libya: in 1998 just under $30 million a piece

Costs of operating these jets: "Meanwhile, it generally costs $10,000 per hour, including maintenance and fuel, to operate F-15s and F-16s. Those costs do not include the payloads dropped from the aircraft. The B-2s dropped 45 Joint Direct Attack Munitions, or JDAMS, which are 2,000-pound bombs that cost between $30,000 and $40,000 apiece to replace."

The cost of Tomahawk Missiles: "On the first day of strikes alone, U.S.-led forces launched 112 long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, which cost about $1 million to $1.5 million apiece, from ships stationed off the Libyan coast. That totaled $112 million to $168 million. Since those first strikes, U.S. and British forces have launched at least another 12 Tomahawk missiles."

Well, thank goodness they're taking all that money away from NPR and Planned Parenthood! Thank goodness this is a country where people choose between paying for healthcare or rent! Nobody can say we don't have our priorities set.

UPDATE: Let me tack on this lovely bit of bitter cynicism from The Angry Arab: "Obama, the peace candidate:
I am sure that in 2012 when Obama runs for re-election, he would pledge to end the war in Libya."

(Thanks to Annie for the inspiration for this post)