The Ironic Cherry Reads...

Out of Sight by Erik Loomis

Simply put, the sixties saw a cumulation of disastrous events that polluted air and water and caused illness and death to workers and communities.  Responding to the outrage of the American people, in the seventies Congress overwhelmingly passed bills like The Clean Air Act and The Occupational Safety and Health Act.  American workers who joined labor unions saw dramatic improvements in wages and working conditions.

But in the mid-seventies, economic shockwaves  rippled through the country, as OPEC imposed an oil embargo that resulted in fuel and food shortages.

As Naomi Klein describes in The Shock Doctrine, corporate and financial power uses times of crises to coerce frightened and insecure populations to give up freedoms and benefits.  The seventies saw labor unions pressured and acquiesce, giving up wages and benefits under the threat of businesses laying off workers or closing down entirely.

The strategy was such a success that states without strong unions and which would offer tax incentives to relocating companies became the destination for much of U.S. manufacturing.  But even better, corporations found that they could outsource work to third world countries and enjoy greater profits without being held accountable for workers' or environmental conditions.  Poor nations with corrupt or weak governments welcomed American business.  Outsourced factories pollute with abandon, and mistreated workers have no recourse to complain.  Corrupt governments and factory owners work hand in hand to provide the goods needed for American companies to continue to make record profits.

And hence, out of sight.

Here in America, as wages have stagnated for decades, consumers look for least expensive goods and are happy not to know about the country of origin as well as the working conditions that exist to manufacture those cheaper goods.  And because we buy those cheaper goods, there is no incentive for corporations to either improve workers conditions in other countries or to relocate back to the U.S.

The vicious cycle completes as U.S. workers continue to lose power over their ability to earn a living wage due to the threat that companies will shut down and relocate to a more profitable economic climate.

The irony is that, while workers in third world countries work for pennies in dangerous conditions to provide us with cheap clothing, toys and electronics, we have been unable to maintain the environmental gains of the sixties and seventies.  We have elected leaders who promise to cut taxes, businesses that cut corners to increase profit and a crippled Environmental Protection Agency, resulting in deadly drinking water, gas leaks that make breathing the air hazardous, and other environmental disasters that we seem to be unable to stop.

Out of Sight is an important book, in that we need to become aware of the effect of corporations with unlimited power throughout the world.  It turns out that what affects workers in Bangladesh affects us all.

 

Praying for 2016

Nikki Haley is finally reaching across the aisle.  On Saturday she will be praying for all of us.  It's apparently called "The Response," and while they want you to think they're waiting to hear what God has to say, it really is just another snow job by the right wing in an attempt to divert us from the fact that they are the cause of a lot of our problems.  The web page for Saturday's event is interesting, given that presumably the most important thing about this event is that it is not supposed to be about politics or government, at all.

Call me a cynic, but after all Nikki Haley has done to keep black people from voting or their children from getting a good education, it is interesting that the home page of this event sandwiches her in between two black men, ministers if you will.  I guess buddying up with Tim Scott worked so well she figured it was time to hunt up some more conservative African Americans.

From what I can see, Zoe Warren appears to be an actual non-political religious person.  But Samuel Rivers, Jr., representative from Goose Creek, is not just political, but so political that he can't quite get the dirt off him.  Not only does his Facebook page sing the praises of the Bush family business (the presidency), but his right wing positions include high marks from conservative business groups and the NRA.  He wrote a a guest column in the Post & Courier (that has since been withdrawn) opposing EPA regulations on water bottles that appeared to have been cribbed from the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.  At least he toes Haley's line politically, which I'm sure makes her happy to have him standing next to her, prayer-wise, even though he has lied about having an actual Doctorate of Theology.

While we're scratching our heads over this big event, I have to ask myself who is paying for it.  After all, free admission at the North Charleston Performing Arts Center isn't like crowding into a church hall or a school cafetorium.  Well, hold on to your hats, folks, because the sponsor is the American Family Association, the group that is so rabidly anti-gay that it is currently asking followers to stop doing business with WellsFargo because of its support of LGBT rights.

Not a political gathering.  At all.

According to David Lane, president and founder of the American Renewal Project, this will be a day of fasting and prayer.  But wait.  David Lane is the guy that is going to wage war for Christianity.  He is going to fight for prayer in schools and to get rid of gays.  He is going to bring back those good old family values, the kind you can find in the Bible, but I think he means more Old Testament than what Jesus preached.

And non-political?  From the American Renewal Project website, his mission:

"...to make evangelical Christians a power in the Republican Party."

And in Lane's own words:  "An army.  That's the goal...."

So what are they going to be praying for?  Nikki says she wants to "pray to remember that we're not in charge."  But would like to be?

There will be lots of proselytizing, lots of pretending to care about the poor and the sick.  But the bottom line under all this hypocrisy is that they actually have the power to change that.  And as far as I recall, God never said to turn to Him when you can fix a problem yourself.  Are they asking for a miracle, in the sense of pray and you will be made well?  Maybe.  Because the alternative would be to pray for health care, and ain't no one on that stage that's going to be praying for that.

And one last thing.  The people on that stage aren't really going to be the ones that are praying.  Or, they may be "praying" but they aren't going to be listening for an answer.

Blue Dogs Going Down

I was surprised to hear that Alison Lundergan Grimes has fallen behind that idiot Mitch McConnell in the polls.  How is that possible?  McConnell has done more to disrupt the workings of government for the people of his state than just about anyone except Tim Scott in the Senate.  Maybe it's because she begins a new ad with, "I'm not Barack Obama," and then says that she disagrees with him on "guns, coal and the EPA."

Well, I'm here to say that she may have just gotten a whole lot of supporters to decide to stay home on election day.  There appear to be in Kentucky actual liberals who don't equate gun control with tyranny but with increased safety and a reduction in crime.  They may also think that coal should not be their children's future; they just may want their kids to grow up without the threat of cancer and climate disasters; they might want to see renewable energy be the source of jobs in Kentucky.  And as for getting rid of the EPA, well, we've heard that old song a lot, but we didn't think we'd hear it from a fellow Democrat.

We don't need another blue dog Democrat undermining the progress the current president has worked so hard (against the tide of Congressional ignorance) to promote.  And I don't think the voters in Kentucky are going to get quite as excited about someone who promises to be McConnell-lite.

Hearing Grimes promise not to be like Barack Obama raises some other questions.  For example, while she supports equal pay for women and help for victims of abuse, she fails to mention whether she supports a woman's right to reproductive freedom and privacy.  I shudder to imagine her failing to support access to birth control and abortions, but can you really trust someone who opposes environmental regulation?

Just as here in South Carolina, we have had to make some tough choices, and Grimes is a sight better than McConnell, but it is disturbing to see members of our own party attempting to curry the favor of those who oppose Democratic principles.  And I have to think that I am not alone in my disappointment.  Those of us who understand the consequences of not voting will grit our teeth and pull that lever for the Democratic candidate.  But sadly, a lot of those who are less informed will go with what they know rather than someone who is trying to sound like them.  And way too many others of us will just stay home.

Proud to Be Tim

Apparently, my soon-to-be-former congressman, Tim Scott, heard that I was going to miss him.  He has been spamming my email since the election.  I can only assume that he is revving up for 2014, and I am willing to bet that he is looking to replace Senator Jim DeMint when DeMint resigns from the Senate to become King of the Tea Party.

Tim always did want to grow up to be Jim DeMint.

Now, when I say Tim Scott is "my" congressman, it is in the sense that I might "have" a bad case of poison ivy.  It is only mine in the sense that I have to deal with it.

In his latest email, South Carolina's reigning African-American Tea Partier leads off with telling me how he is fighting to keep us from getting pushed off that fiscal cliff.  He is of course going to do it without raising taxes on job creators, because that would be "punishing success."

Hmph.

I would think that punishing success has more to do with the low pay we in South Carolina get for our hard work, or the high rate of unemployment for our high school and college graduates.  Or how about trying to make seniors work longer before they can collect social security benefits, and wait longer for Medicare benefits, after a life of contributing to both?  I'm thinking that voting against affordable student loans is pretty much punishing success right there.

Tim Scott is not afraid to brag that he has just received another one of those awards, this time the National Association of Manufacturer's Award for -- hold your hats -- Manufacturing Legislative Excellence!  Now I know the kind of awards our Tim gets, so I looked this bunch up.  Sure enough, they are an industry lobbying group.  You know, the guys who have a lot more money to throw around in D.C. than you or I do.  They want to help convince our legislators that, for example, the Environmental Protection Agency is an evil enterprise.  I guess Tim got the award because he didn't take that much convincing.

Apparently, he also sent holiday greetings to our troops overseas, which means a lot more to him than voting for bills that would improve the way of life of returning veterans.

Our Tim is never one to forget to send a card.

I wish the hypocrisy was funny, but it's not.  We really should be outraged that this fortunate young man pretends to care about the working class people in neighborhoods like the one where he was raised, and then votes repeatedly against those people.  He has thrown his lot in with the moneyed interests, who then give him phony-baloney awards for doing their bidding.

So, once again, shame on you Tim Scott.  

In the News -- April 1, 2011

The Environmental Protection Agency reports that amounts of radiation found in the water on the East and West Coasts of the U.S. coming from Japan could actually be beneficial.  Unfortunately, since budget cuts have reduced the staff of the EPA to three graduate students and a retired tobacco CEO, this is merely a "best guess" scenario.  On their recommendation, however, President Obama vows to redouble efforts to increase the number of nuclear power plants under construction.  Asked for comment, John Boehner responded, "Jobs, jobs, jobs."

The Central Intelligence Agency is searching for some sleazoid to put in power in Libya after Gaddafi goes into exile.  While there are no apparent hard and fast requirements, the candidate should pretend to like the United States, and if not an all-out supporter of capitalism, at least be willing to accept large amounts of  cash.

Representative Eric Cantor admits to failing his required college government course repeatedly.  "I don't know what it was about U.S. Government," he confided, "probably all those complicated checks and balances."  He confirmed in a news conference yesterday that he has been using John Boehner's old cheatsheets as guidelines for determining House rules.

Also, in a remarkably cynical turn of events, President Barack Obama has announced that he will run in 2012 as a Republican.  "It seems that I only get respect from folk like Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn.  I try to explain to those people on the left that voted for me in '08 that it's all about compromise, well, let this just be proof of that.  There is no greater compromise than complete surrender," he said to new friend Bill O'Reilly.

In local South Carolina news on this April 1:

An audit of Governor Nikki Haley concluded that Governor Haley has in fact paid all federal taxes that were due.

And The Lord came to Senator Jim DeMint today, explaining that in fact, it is His will that those who have should help those with less.