Posts
The president who said he would be a “uniter” continues to sow discord and division across our land. Rather than bringing people together, he causes enmity and strife between long-time friends, family members, all to accomplish what?
Once again, anti-war protestors are mobilizing for another march to protest our involvement in Iraq, this one organized by United for Peace and Justice. This one will take place this weekend in Washington, DC and is expected to attract upwards of 100,000 people. I don’t mean to burst any bubbles of hope, but significantly larger anti-war events have had little effect on Mr. Bush, who prides himself in his ability to ignore the will of the people.
I read in my local daily that an Army veteran and retiree from Poland, Bob Chapman, is planning to march against the war. He’s also calling for the impeachment of the president, because of the blatant lies used to justify going to war.
The article in the Lewiston Sun Journal mentioned a counterdemonstration, sponsored by a group called Move America Forward—apparently unnecessary carnage under the guise of lies and obfuscation means progress for these folks. The photos on their website show people amazingly white (and probably privileged). Per usual, those willing to support this administration regardless of the horrible acts and death that they sponsor, continues to maintain a core constituency.
For me, it defies logic, but then again, many in Nazi Germany were able to bury their heads in the sand and maintain denial of the holocaust taking place right before their eyes. I’m not sure why it's so important to ignore the obvious in order to maintain an ideology, but then again, I’ve been burned enough by those purporting to have the corner on truth, to know better at this stage of the game.
Post-Katrina clean-up riddled with corruption and cronyism-
Keeping with the theme of the Bush administration's absolute lack of concern for the wishes and well-being of all but their richest friends and cronies, we have this:
Sept. 14—Some of the first large-scale Hurricane Katrina relief and recovery contracts awarded by the Bush administration were awarded on a no-bid basis to corporations with strong ties to the administration and the Republican Party, according to news stories in The Wall Street Journal and other media. At the same time, the administration is using the catastrophe to push a reactionary anti-worker agenda, gutting federal regulations that protect worker safety and ensure quality work and living wages.
The no-bid deals include $100 million contracts to the Fluor Corp., a major donor to the GOP, and the Shaw Group, which is client of Joe M. Allbaugh, President George W. Bush’s campaign manager in 2000 and the former director the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Meanwhile Halliburton Co., subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root Services received a $29.8 million clean-up contract, while Halliburton, formerly run by Vice President Dick Cheney, is doing repair work at three Navy facilities in Mississippi under an existing contract. The company also has been awarded billions of dollars of federal contracts for work in Iraq and that work and the Bush administration’s Iraq procurement policies have been heavily criticized in recent years.
Amazing, but only if you haven't been paying attention the last six years. What I find unconcionable is the fact that people who've literally had everything ripped from them, must now face the impossible specter of rebuilding their lives, while this administration strips them of their livelihoods and jobs paying a living wage.
The Bush administration also is using the disaster to attack federal standards ensuring quality work and worker safety. Last week, the administration announced it was eliminating the high-quality work standards set by the federal Davis-Bacon law for hurricane reconstruction contracts work, allowing contractors to pay substandard wages to construction workers in the affected areas, and the administration also is lifting many affirmative action rules for reconstruction contracts.
Bush now wants to suspend wage supports for service workers in the hurricane zone as it did for construction workers on federal contracts last week, according to The Washington Post.
The administration also has suspended regulations limiting the number of hours truckers can drive when transporting fuel. In addition, Bush has weakened restrictions giving contracting preferences to small and minority-owned businesses and has suspended the Jones Act, which requires transport of petroleum, gasoline and other petroleum products on U.S.-flagged ships while operating in U.S. coastal waters.
The no-bid contracts “guarantee profits regardless of how much those companies spend or waste,” says AFT President Edward J. McElroy. “This is happening at the same time that the local hires of these firms will, in many cases, not earn a living wage. It is unconscionable that our national government would act to hurt those most in need while delivering a windfall to wealthy contractors. These decisions must be reversed.”
This is a blatent declaration of war on the working class and poor by an administration that received votes from many of these same people. There is no representation any longer for anyone but those on the top runs of the socio-economic ladder. Everyone else is being pissed on below!
Monday, September 19, 2005
Saturday, September 17, 2005
An honest assessment
The level of arrogance exhibited by most Americans continually amazes me. In all honesty, I am part of that culture of arrogance and privilege that is uniquely American. Growing up during an era of limitless cheap oil and an economy that allowed a high school graduate to support a family on living wages from the local mill, it was natural to assume that America’s limitless growth would continue.
Interestingly, over the 25 years that have elapsed since I graduated from high school, I’ve come to understand a few things that go against my capitalist socialization from the 1960’s and 1970’s. During the end of my high school years in the late 1970’s, I witnessed gas lines that resulted from the oil embargo of that period. For the first time, a red flag was raised concerning the myth of a limitless supply of cheap petroleum. Even our president at the time, Jimmy Carter, spoke of the need to alter our way of life—i.e., we could no longer consume energy (namely in the form of oil and gas) at the rates that we were currently gorging ourselves with. As Carter quickly learned, you can’t tell arrogant Americans that they can’t have what they think they are entitled to—gasoline and cheap oil were non-negotiable pillars of our American way of life. Hence, Carter lost to Reagan and of course, it was a “new day in America.”
We recently witnessed gas prices spike steadily skyward, with prices in this area nearing the $3.50 mark in some places. While the price has fallen back below $3.00/gallon , the specter of a difficult winter for many in the northeast and other colder climates of the U.S looms before us.
Yet, in spite of these clear signposts indicating serious concerns about maintaining perpetual growth and consumption of finite natural resourses, there seems to be little if any conservation being done, let alone talked about. If we had begun building rail and public transportation options into the U.S. infrastructure back in the 1970’s, as well as mandating enactment of conservation programs and had aggressively developed alternatives to cheap oil, then we might be in a different and far more secure place today. Many experts think it’s too late, as we near the peak of global oil production and begin heading down the slope of diminished supplies.
Two articles came across my desk that make me think back to those optimistic days of my youth, when I thought that I’d get a college degree and be set for life. How naïve (and yes, arrogant) I was. Do people in Europe have a sense that things will get progressively better? Certainly, if I was born in parts of the third world, my life would have been dramatically different.
Economically, the opportunities that were available to many in the 1960’s and even the 1970’s have disappeared. Globalization (and the off shoring of good-paying American jobs) has seen to it that earning a living has gotten more and more difficult with each passing year. Many don’t understand why that is. I say a lot of it has to do with the tax shift that began around 1970, when the burden was moved from those in the wealthiest brackets, over to the middle class and many working poor.
In addition to taxes shifting from the wealthy, to the less wealthy Americans (namely the working classes and poor), we’ve also seen how we’ve embraced technology and cheap oil as the panacea to all of our problems. Wendell Berry’s latest article in Orion, has some interesting things to say about this.
While I’m not purposefully trying to be dour, I’m one that prefers to deal in reality and not fantasy. Leadership in our nation calls for some tough and honest discussions about these types of issues.
Interestingly, over the 25 years that have elapsed since I graduated from high school, I’ve come to understand a few things that go against my capitalist socialization from the 1960’s and 1970’s. During the end of my high school years in the late 1970’s, I witnessed gas lines that resulted from the oil embargo of that period. For the first time, a red flag was raised concerning the myth of a limitless supply of cheap petroleum. Even our president at the time, Jimmy Carter, spoke of the need to alter our way of life—i.e., we could no longer consume energy (namely in the form of oil and gas) at the rates that we were currently gorging ourselves with. As Carter quickly learned, you can’t tell arrogant Americans that they can’t have what they think they are entitled to—gasoline and cheap oil were non-negotiable pillars of our American way of life. Hence, Carter lost to Reagan and of course, it was a “new day in America.”
We recently witnessed gas prices spike steadily skyward, with prices in this area nearing the $3.50 mark in some places. While the price has fallen back below $3.00/gallon , the specter of a difficult winter for many in the northeast and other colder climates of the U.S looms before us.
Yet, in spite of these clear signposts indicating serious concerns about maintaining perpetual growth and consumption of finite natural resourses, there seems to be little if any conservation being done, let alone talked about. If we had begun building rail and public transportation options into the U.S. infrastructure back in the 1970’s, as well as mandating enactment of conservation programs and had aggressively developed alternatives to cheap oil, then we might be in a different and far more secure place today. Many experts think it’s too late, as we near the peak of global oil production and begin heading down the slope of diminished supplies.
Two articles came across my desk that make me think back to those optimistic days of my youth, when I thought that I’d get a college degree and be set for life. How naïve (and yes, arrogant) I was. Do people in Europe have a sense that things will get progressively better? Certainly, if I was born in parts of the third world, my life would have been dramatically different.
Economically, the opportunities that were available to many in the 1960’s and even the 1970’s have disappeared. Globalization (and the off shoring of good-paying American jobs) has seen to it that earning a living has gotten more and more difficult with each passing year. Many don’t understand why that is. I say a lot of it has to do with the tax shift that began around 1970, when the burden was moved from those in the wealthiest brackets, over to the middle class and many working poor.
In addition to taxes shifting from the wealthy, to the less wealthy Americans (namely the working classes and poor), we’ve also seen how we’ve embraced technology and cheap oil as the panacea to all of our problems. Wendell Berry’s latest article in Orion, has some interesting things to say about this.
While I’m not purposefully trying to be dour, I’m one that prefers to deal in reality and not fantasy. Leadership in our nation calls for some tough and honest discussions about these types of issues.
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Turning back the clock in America
This morning, I had C-Span on for the first time in quite awhile. They had Wade Henderson from the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights as a guest, discussing the John Roberts confirmation hearings, for Supreme Court justice.
Mr. Henderson, an articulate and measured African-American, had some interesting and somewhat disturbing things to say about Roberts and his possible confirmation. Rather than posturing and adding ideological fuel to the debate, Henderson was a breathe of fresh air, while all the while, indicating to me that Roberts' confirmation would set the clock back in our country on civil rights, women's issues, privacy and all manner of other things many of us take for granted.
My concern about an appointment of John Roberts as Chief Justice is that he would protect the rights and freedoms of those in the ruling class, at the expense of those of us in the working classes and other Americans who are not part of the privileged caste.
Per usual, some of the right-wing trolls managed to call in and castigate Henderson, engaging in some veiled racist rhetoric that is part of their schtick. What I found particularly galling, is the ruse used by so many of the right-wing noise crowd, having the audacity to mention Martin Luther King Jr. and his vision for a society free of class, race and gender. Many, if not most, who dwell on the right side of the political spectrum, couldn't care less about what King waxed poetic about. His last days on earth were taken up with the cause and concern of trying to create a society where economic justice was paramount. I concur that the biggest threat posed by King--and ultimately what led to his murder--was his courage to broach the issue of class and economic justice and his willlingness to champion the cause of the poor and downtrodden.
Because he was able to pull together all members of the underclasses, irrespective of race, he posed a tremendous threat to the ruling class and the propertied gentry in America. As has been common throughout our history, those who are capable of waking the slumbering masses must be exterminated in order to maintain the propaganda of power in our land.
I find it particularly galling that once again, the Roberts' confirmation process once more rubs our noses in the detritus of lies that this administration leaves in its wake. Claiming a moral superiority that is nothing but rampant hypocrisy, the Bush administration continually insults the 50 percent in our country that recognizes them for what they are--elitists, patricians and sociopathic liars who would have been tossed out into the street, or worse, in a different time. Instead, our apathetic lives of affluence leave us to chatter like magpies, but do little else to reclaim our country to which we are rightful heirs.
Mr. Henderson, an articulate and measured African-American, had some interesting and somewhat disturbing things to say about Roberts and his possible confirmation. Rather than posturing and adding ideological fuel to the debate, Henderson was a breathe of fresh air, while all the while, indicating to me that Roberts' confirmation would set the clock back in our country on civil rights, women's issues, privacy and all manner of other things many of us take for granted.
My concern about an appointment of John Roberts as Chief Justice is that he would protect the rights and freedoms of those in the ruling class, at the expense of those of us in the working classes and other Americans who are not part of the privileged caste.
Per usual, some of the right-wing trolls managed to call in and castigate Henderson, engaging in some veiled racist rhetoric that is part of their schtick. What I found particularly galling, is the ruse used by so many of the right-wing noise crowd, having the audacity to mention Martin Luther King Jr. and his vision for a society free of class, race and gender. Many, if not most, who dwell on the right side of the political spectrum, couldn't care less about what King waxed poetic about. His last days on earth were taken up with the cause and concern of trying to create a society where economic justice was paramount. I concur that the biggest threat posed by King--and ultimately what led to his murder--was his courage to broach the issue of class and economic justice and his willlingness to champion the cause of the poor and downtrodden.
Because he was able to pull together all members of the underclasses, irrespective of race, he posed a tremendous threat to the ruling class and the propertied gentry in America. As has been common throughout our history, those who are capable of waking the slumbering masses must be exterminated in order to maintain the propaganda of power in our land.
I find it particularly galling that once again, the Roberts' confirmation process once more rubs our noses in the detritus of lies that this administration leaves in its wake. Claiming a moral superiority that is nothing but rampant hypocrisy, the Bush administration continually insults the 50 percent in our country that recognizes them for what they are--elitists, patricians and sociopathic liars who would have been tossed out into the street, or worse, in a different time. Instead, our apathetic lives of affluence leave us to chatter like magpies, but do little else to reclaim our country to which we are rightful heirs.
Monday, September 12, 2005
Hitting the road
Well, my first day on the road, schlepping When Towns Had Teams went very well. By-and-large, most of the independent bookstores I stopped at were very interested--I did have a couple this morning that didn't seem particularly thrilled about my book, with one them agreeing to take just one book!
By the end of the day, I had visited 10 bookstores/retail establisments and had dropped off 40 books. One pleasant surprise was the Mostly Maine store on Route 1 in Edgecomb. I happened to notice it on while passing north and stopped on my way back south. The owner, Ed Hannan, was very enthusiastic and agreed to take three and thought I'd do well in the spring when the tourists return.
Gary Lawless at Gulf of Maine in Brunswick was very encouraging. I enjoy his store immensely. Not only does he have a wide array of some of the most interesting books you'll find in any bookstore north of Boston, but he is a publisher himself, on his own Blackberry Press imprint. Additionally, Donna Williams in Falmouth at The Book Review and Chris Bowe at Longfellow Books in Portland were excited to receive copies.
Apparently, The Book Review has already received two special orders for When Towns Had Teams, which is very cool. Longfellow Books will be hosting a book signing for me on October 5th at 7pm, so I'm pleased with that.
All in all, a very good day and with this morning's large shipment of pre-ordered books, numerous copies of When Towns Had Teams are making their way out into the bookbuying public.
By the end of the day, I had visited 10 bookstores/retail establisments and had dropped off 40 books. One pleasant surprise was the Mostly Maine store on Route 1 in Edgecomb. I happened to notice it on while passing north and stopped on my way back south. The owner, Ed Hannan, was very enthusiastic and agreed to take three and thought I'd do well in the spring when the tourists return.
Gary Lawless at Gulf of Maine in Brunswick was very encouraging. I enjoy his store immensely. Not only does he have a wide array of some of the most interesting books you'll find in any bookstore north of Boston, but he is a publisher himself, on his own Blackberry Press imprint. Additionally, Donna Williams in Falmouth at The Book Review and Chris Bowe at Longfellow Books in Portland were excited to receive copies.
Apparently, The Book Review has already received two special orders for When Towns Had Teams, which is very cool. Longfellow Books will be hosting a book signing for me on October 5th at 7pm, so I'm pleased with that.
All in all, a very good day and with this morning's large shipment of pre-ordered books, numerous copies of When Towns Had Teams are making their way out into the bookbuying public.
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Watch out below!
This is not original, but it does contain truth, elements of profundity, and most importantly, it made me laugh (as in, you 'gotta laugh, to keep from cryin').
Posted in the Clusterfuck Nation comment section was this;
"Whenever I hear the phrase 'trickle down economics' I think of being pissed on."
For many of us, we are certainly being "pissed on" by the culprits in charge.
Posted in the Clusterfuck Nation comment section was this;
"Whenever I hear the phrase 'trickle down economics' I think of being pissed on."
For many of us, we are certainly being "pissed on" by the culprits in charge.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)