March 14, 2012
March 3, 2012
January 23, 2012
October 10, 2011
Connect the Dots: Here’s How We Became the ’99 Percent’
…and some things we can do to change it.
Deregulation enacted by Republicans and conservative Democrats, and an unprecedented Supreme Court decision allowing corporations the free speech the Founders intended only for flesh-and-blood human beings, led to the majority of Americans steadily sinking economically, as the nation’s wealth flowed to the top. Here are some simple demands to reverse this lethal course, along with a few suggestions of my own following the highlighted portion.
“The demands are pretty damned easy to summarize:
– Reinstate Glass-Steagall
– Audit the FED
– Reverse Citizens United (via Constitutional Amendment)
– Overhaul the tax code for the mega-rich (1%) and corporations”
– “#OWS: Take this video VIRAL, NOW!” Daily Kos, Oct. 9, 2011.
Here are my suggestions:
– End the corporate charter of any corporation that repeatedly or recklessly does harm to their customers or the environment.
– Revamp the rules regarding the appointment of boards of directors to corporations, making shareholder meetings more convenient to attend, or hold them online, and streamline voting procedures so that shareholders can more easily vote on the compensation packages of top executives and who will serve on the corporate board.
– End the practice of buying stock ‘on margin.’ (In other words, you must prove you have the money to pay for any stock you are buying.)
– Stricter enforcement of SEC regulations.
– Tax companies that outsource jobs or other assets overseas at a rate that will remove the profit in doing so.
– Tax offshored assets at the same rate domestic profits are taxed.
– Hold top executives responsible for a corporation’s criminal acts in the same way an individual American would be held responsible. (Example: If an executive approves a heart drug that his company’s internal studies say induces heart attacks, he or she would be as criminally liable as an individual who knowingly provided another person with a drug that caused a heart attack.)
– No corporation that sells equipment or electronics to the government will retain the right to secret proprietary codes or other information on their products.
– Finally, of course, we have to ban corporations from lobbying our government officials and limit the money spent in our elections.
But these suggestions are only a start; perhaps we should rethink the whole concept of the corporation as an entity for doing business as they have now become Too Big to Fail behemoths that threaten our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and our form of government, and many continue to exist only through taxpayer bailouts. As Ambrose Bierce put it more than a hundred years ago: “Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.” It’s time we brought back responsibility to the marketplace.
Watch the video here.
Here’s a simplified version of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Second Economic Bill of Rights, proposed in 1944, which, if enacted, would solve a great many of our problems:
November 5, 2010
The Tattlesnake – Jon Stewart WTF?!? and Other Miscellaneous Head-Slappers Edition
– What is Jon Stewart playing at? I’m a big fan of The Daily Show star and think he’s done a great job in the past, so it pains me to write this, but WTF?!? Okay, so to make his point at the Rally to Restore Sanity he tossed Keith Olbermann and Ed Schultz under the same bus reserved for Glenn Beck and Fox News. Last Monday, Olbermann graciously took his point and even cancelled indefinitely one of my favorite Countdown segments, “Worst Persons in the World.” But the other day on TDS, here’s Stewart heaping honey on Chris Wallace of Fox News and agreeing to appear on Wallace’s “Fox News Sunday.” Yes, he took a few mild swipes at Fox’s obvious Republican partisanship, but he also equated MSNBC, the home of Olbermann and Schulz, to a AA ball club compared to the Big Leaguers at Fox. He didn’t mean that in a complimentary way, but Jon can’t seriously believe there is any parity between what Fox does and what MSNBC does. (For one thing, Fox doesn’t give a liberal Democrat a three-hour weekday morning program, as MSNBC has with conservative Republican Joe Scarborough.) Put simply: Fox lies, as Stewart well knows, and MSNBC’s progressive hosts, even though they may display passion for their side, don’t. You can’t possibly have a restoration of sanity without fact, and Jon Stewart knows that, as well. So, why is Stewart trying to make them both seem equal? A few possibilities:
H/T to the Bartcop main page for the graphic
2. Maybe Stewart just has some personal animosity toward Olbermann and Schultz and he’s taking it out this way. That would be mighty petty of him, but nobody’s perfect, particularly in an ego-driven arena like show business.
3. This is the ugly one: Comedy Central is owned by corporate media giant Viacom and it’s possible they finally noticed TDS and Stewart have had quite an impact on recent elections and the voting trends of those under 30. Was Stewart brought in by Bush-backer and Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone for a pointed “Network” reminder of who signs his paychecks and told to back off? I have noticed Jon has been much more civil to right-wingers this year, even bottom of the barrel types like Bill O’Reilly. I’d hate to think the reason he’s promoting this ‘equivalency’ is that he doesn’t want to end up back humping the comedy club circuit doing 300 “Hey, I’ll be at McLaughington’s in Akron on Friday!” road gigs a year. He’s now a middle-aged man with a home, wife, family and a pile of bills – powerful reasons to toe the corporate line.
4. And this is the really horrible one: Perhaps his head is being turned by the ‘charm’ of the right-wing corporatists; they can be very persuasive ‘good guys’ in person, unless you remember the whole fetid history of the Republican Party of the past 30 years. I recall when Dennis Miller had his HBO show years ago: first he brought on right-wingers to lightly mock them, as Stewart does; then he had them on to explain their positions while he nodded his head; then he became one of the Pod People himself. Miller should be a warning of what happens to those who turn their backs on sanity and the facts – they end up losing their core audience, and money, as they perform for a bunch of dimwit thumbsuckers who don’t get their jokes.
5. Even more horrible than the last one: Stewart is angling for a nice, long-term berth at Fox hosting a TDS-style political satire show. It’s no secret Roger Ailes has been looking to compete with TDS; what better way than to back up Murdoch’s money truck and hire away Stewart? (Think Karl Rove: attack their strong point.) I’d hate to think this is Stewart’s motivation, but it’s a possibility.
Whatever the reason is, I wish Stewart would, in the interest of fairness, have Olbermann and Schultz as guests on his show to present their side, as he does with the Fox Newsers. (And Olbermann and Schultz should reciprocate by having Stewart on their shows to explain himself.) Let’s clear the air.
I hope this is all a tiff among friends, rather than the creation of another Miller monstrosity or Ailes attack dog.
Comments Off
November 3, 2010
The Tattlesnake – Sifting Through the Post-Election Ashes Edition
First off, in my previous ‘Toast and Coast’ pieces, I accurately predicted that Republican Teabaggers Linda McMahon, Carl Paladino, and the Sisterhood of the Traveling Palins, Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell, were all toast, along with the Billionaire Girls Club of Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina. G.I. Joe Miller in Alaska and Ken Buck in Colorado are still undecided at this hour. That leaves two where the Tattler’s crystal ball was cloudy – Rand “There’s Something About an Aqua Buddha Man” Paul in Kentucky and Mark “Captain Blight” Kirk in Illinois – but 6 out of 8 ain’t bad. Ron Paul’s offshoot was the biggest surprise, but probably should not have been in a Red State that elected a turtle wax replicant like the sour-lipped Mitch McConnell to the Senate.
As I watched the televised bulletins from the Planet Xenon otherwise known as the Mainstream Media carve up and autopsy What This Election Means today, of course the MSM managed to bungle and bypass any realistic diagnosis as they became trapped in the humbug of their own quackery and delusion. A blur of the Pundit Class’ finest recruits for Perdition hilariously kept sawing on some iteration of this soggy paper-maché log: “This election will show Obama he has to cooperate with the Republicans to get things done!” Really? What has he been doing so far?
The official DeeCee Democratic Party, naturally, will take the wrong lesson from this drubbing – “We need to be more conservative!” rather than, “We have to stand for our progressive principles and stop backing down!” So, have no worries, Teabaggers, the GOP, even though a majority only in the House, will get everything it wants out of the Senate, from budget-busting tax cuts for the wealthy and further corporate deregulation to, perhaps, some curtailing of unemployment benefits and elimination of the minimum wage, hastening our final plunge off the economic cliff.
And you won’t hear John Boehner solemnly announcing, “Impeachment is off the table!” To the contrary, the Republicans will be conducting proctological investigations of every person who ever spoke to Obama in an effort to find some scrap of sleaze with which to remove him from office, aided and abetted by Fox News and the other media gangsters on the right. (Orly Taitz, get ready for your Congressional appearance!) While the GOP likely won’t be successful at actually impeaching Obama, they will so muddy his name and reputation that they’ll get their wish – he’ll be a one-term footnote in history, ‘first African-American president,’ with no other accomplishments listed.
In the Tattler’s occasional Unscientific Barroom Polls, I ask tipplers of various ages and colors to state, in a few short words, what they think conservative Republicans believe in: “Tax cuts,” “Small government,” and “Strong defense,” were the most frequent answers. I then ask the same question regarding the Democrats. Most people stared at me agape, unable to think of a thing, although one respondent said “Weakness” and another uttered “Big government.” During the time of FDR, most Americans presented with the same query about Democrats would have said, “Saving the economy,” “Fighting for the little guy,” “Creating jobs.” Will the Dems learn that lesson? You have to stand for something.
In two years America will be sick of the Republicans, or what’s left of America anyway, and ready to toss the conservatives out in favor of Democrats who think they should be more conservative, and the dance will continue until the global economic collapse that is certain unless a miracle happens and Obama starts taking tips from FDR instead of Lincoln.
© 2010 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.
Comments Off
July 19, 2010
June 18, 2010
February 5, 2010
Telling the Truth About the Blue Dog Democrats
Think President Obama had a 60-vote majority in the Senate that was spoiled by the election of Republican Scott Brown in Massachusetts? Think again. Aside from ‘Independent’ (McCain Republican) Joe Lieberman, There are ten die-hard ‘ConservaDem’ Blue Dog Democrats, as well as another five senators who tend toward Blue Doggerel. That means progressives would have had trouble getting even fifty votes on any important reform legislation. Read on, especially below the fold:
Comments Off
April 30, 2009
The Tattlesnake – Rep. Hoot, Sen. Smalley and the Fox Swine Crew Edition
The Harder They Fall…
What a Hoot: As Keith Olbermann reported Wednesday night, perpetually-insane Minnesota comediatrix Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Daft) brought the funny the other day when she took to the House floor to condemn Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Dems for the ‘Hoot-Smalley Act’ of the Great Depression era. While you can never be sure when dealing with a dingbat like Bachmann, who apparently stole her blank eyeballs from a crazy doll in “Bride of Chucky“, she probably meant the ‘Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act‘ that was sponsored by two Republicans, and signed into law by Republican President Herbert Hoover in 1930. In reality, FDR campaigned against the act in 1932, and a Dem majority in Congress effectively repealed Smoot-Hawley in 1934 with the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act, but in Michele’s loopy-dumb, wish-I-had-a-brain, far-right universe facts are a liberal, commie plot invented by the Devil to trip up those patriotically lying in the name of Jesus. If you’re a sane Republican (okay, that would be confined to ex-McCain manager Steve Schmidt and Sen. Olympia Snowe) you know that Bachmann’s Sixth District is already in the ‘D’ column in 2010 (she nearly lost to an unknown children’s book character named Elwyn Tinklenberg in ’08), and that you must find a legal means to (a) shut this woman up before she further damages what’s left of your party and (b) prevent her from running for president or vice president in 2012. (The vision of a ‘Palin-Bachmann 2012′ ticket privately induces dyspeptic nightmares of an LBJ/Goldwater electoral slaughter among GOP bigwigs.) Of course, it may be too late – the GOP brand is so tainted that if you jettisoned all of the dotty Dittoheads, nattering neocons, tone-deaf teabaggers, putrid Palinites, raging racists, Savage Nation neo-Nazis, fatuous Freepers, flaming fully-automatic gun nuts and kinky religious kooks, you could assemble what’s left of the party in a Washington hotel ballroom with space to spare for a trained elephant act. (For more on this, read the last two items in this article.)
He’s Good Enough, He’s Smart Enough and Doggone It, the People Liked Him! Speaking of Minnesota, the drab electoral Death March of Numb Norm Coleman, the Republican Sore Loser, received a little spark of life thanks to the wily minds in Al Franken’s
April 5, 2009
The Tattlesnake – Rushing to the Bottom-Feeders Edition
Who Else is There Left for Limbaugh to Influence?
Rush Limbaugh is a phenomenon of the ’80s and ’90s when he still retained some ability to shock, and the entire regressive Republican agenda he insistently trumpeted daily, which fundamentally amounted to electing Republicans to throw money at the rich and permitting corporations and Wall Street to act without regulation, had yet to be proven by events, such as our present Great Depression redux, to be the recipe for mass disaster it has historically been.
Limbaugh had quite a time back then kicking around FDR’s liberalism that had brought the nation out of the last Republican-generated economic crisis of the 1930s, and counted on the uneducated knuckledraggers, attention-deficit cretins, McCarthyite jingoists, terrified shut-ins, imperial chickenhawks and outright cases of brain damage that populate his audience to trust his hooey-fied history lessons and giggle at his class-clown racism and sexism.
Rush often claims his talent is on loan from God but, since he’s never clear as to the identity of his personal deity, it might very well be one with two horns and a scaly tail who causes young girls to prodigiously vomit pea soup. (A reaction Rush is no doubt accustomed to from women by now.) Conservatism has often been used as a respectable ideological shield for the darker aspects of the human character such as greed, selfishness and cruelty, and Limbaugh evinces all of these flaws is his daily three-hour howlings at the moon.
What does this spoiled self-serving multi-millionaire mostly gripe about on his show? Those in the upper-10 percent tax bracket such as himself paying higher taxes. He makes $50 million a year and he’s complaining bitterly over paying a few percentage points more in taxes to help his country out of the mess caused by the Republican ‘principles’ he’s ardently promoted of deregulating markets, banks, investment firms, real estate, and unfettered corporate expansion, while lowering taxes for the rich and running enormous deficits. Instead of taking responsibility for what he’s advocated, Rush blames it on Obama and the Democrats. What a mighty good man.
Before confusing Limbaugh’s brand of patriotism with the dictionary definition of that word, it’s instructive to heed the underlying message of his broadcasts: Money before country — particularly Rush’s own sacrosanct bankroll.
September 23, 2008
The Tattlesnake – Flying Under the Cuckoo’s Nest Edition
“In fact, now I come to think of it, do we decide questions at all? We decide answers, no doubt: but surely the questions decide us? It is the dog, you know, that wags the tail — not the tail that wags the dog.”
– Lewis Carroll
“Welcome to the conservative’s worst nightmare: The law of unintended consequences. Why? Nobody wants to admit it, folks, but the conservatives’ grand ideology is backfiring, actually turning the world’s greatest capitalistic democracy into the world’s newest socialist economy.”
– Paul B. Ferrell, “11 reasons America’s a new socialist economy,” MarketWatch, July 22, 2008.
“The US economy had better have luck on its side. Luck is about all it has left.”
– Clive Crook, “Only Luck Can Save America’s Economy,” Financial Times, Aug. 3, 2008.
Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Fed Chief Ben Bernanke are a couple of dimwitted chuckleheads who shouldn’t be in any position of authority related to solving this current GOP-generated economic catastrophe. Either Paulson and Bernanke didn’t see it coming, in which case they were asleep at the switch; or they did see it coming, and did nothing to stop it. Either way, they are useless at effecting a solution; both should be handed their walking papers. Good replacements might be Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research as Treasury Secretary – he appreciated the danger of the approaching tsunami years ago – and Princeton economist Paul Krugman for the Fed. NY Times columnist Krugman also had to brains to read the signs indicating that the bridge is out up ahead and we were entering the Twilight Zone financially long before most of the various Up with People-Eaters ‘experts’ on The Street realized we were cruising to sure doom. Paulson and Bernanke should exit quickly with their heads held in shame, lucky they haven’t been forced to walk the plank for their egregious ignorance and incompetence. Oh, and the Bush Boy? Keep making speeches about the economy you still don’t understand, Junior, and reminding voters why they don’t need another neoconservative Republican in the White House next year.
The current economic meltdown, which some of us left-wing nuts like Mike Whitney and yours truly have been predicting for years, is the direct result of neoconservative policies, starting with Ronald Reagan. When Reagan said government is the problem, he apparently forgot that the government of the United States is of, by and for the people, so he was actually saying that ‘we the people’ are the problem. And so we are – if not for our demands that rapacious corporations and the greedy wealthy obey the laws, pay us and treat us fairly, and otherwise conduct themselves with some modicum of decency, the Corprocracy could have a field day, in the same way the Mafia could prosper wildly if there weren’t any ‘regulations’ governing their activities. For the last 25 years, the neoconservative Republicans, and especially John McCain, have successfully done all that they could to deregulate banks, business and the markets and it has culminated in the worst financial disaster since the Great Depression, as even one of the ardent handmaidens of the collapse, flank-coverer Alan Greenspan, recently confessed. This is also a failure of F.A. von Hayek, Milton Friedman, Paul Wolfowitz, Grover Norquist and every other neoconservative jackass who has come down the pike banging the drum for the delusion of trickle-down wealth, the deception of free international trade, the hallucination of cheap privatized government services, and the myth of self-regulating markets.
Comments Off
Rebels, Outlaws, and Occupy Protesters vs. Republicans?
Is it worth the effort to write a column that ties together the W. C. Fields slogan “Never Give a Sucker an even Break,” Ross Thomas’ book title “The Fools in Town Are on our Side,” and the old locker room adage “my wife’s married; but I’m not” and present something that will amuse the hardcore Fox Views audience who believe that they are people with inquiring minds who won’t get fooled again?
So which of the Republicans are the Foxkrieg troops going to embrace this year? Will it be the Rich guy who made millions liquidating American businesses while trying to palm himself off as a Woody Guthrie-ish man of the streets? (Why didn’t he just say “I’m the Wall Street guy”?) Will it be the studly family values = open marriage guy? Will it be Rick “say hello to my little friend” Santorum?
Aren’t contemporary efforts to assess the Republican scramble to select a 2012 Presidential Candidate similar to trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle while participating in the stampede to depart from a sinking ship that has sounded the abandon ship alarm? It is an impossible task so the pundits should embrace the insanity.
Is America ready to do a mind melt with Rupert Murdoch and select soccer as the official American pastime? If anyone can turn soccer hooliganism into a display of American patriotism, surely it will be the Fox analysts, eh? Isn’t Superbowl Sunday going to start with a Manchester United match? Wow! Will all the Tottenham Hotspurs fans tune in to see the Manchester boys get their noses bloodied (figuratively speaking, of course!)?
Have any of the news organizations done an update on the brain cancer victim who was sent to the hospital for daring to root for an out-of-town team at a Hockey match recently?
Don’t sports fans believe in “One sport – One Team – One star player”?
Can’t we all get along and subscribe to a philosophy that asserts “One CEO!” as a (metaphorically speaking) way of supporting whoever gets elected President in November? The Republicans all agree that the Democrats should think that way.
Don’t the skeptics who get so upset with the Occupy Movement urge the protesters to get a job because work will set them free? BFH! (Isn’t that the Brit-texting way of saying Bloody Far-out Hell!”?)
Only Democrats see a contradiction in continuing the foreclosure trend and then telling the homeless families that they can’t sleep in tents in public parks and they can’t stay in abandoned office buildings either. Duh! Ya can’t create jobs in office buildings that have become de facto slum tenements. They have to be ready to house new businesses when the Republicans use the electronic voting machines (with unverifiable results) to replace the incumbent President.
If a Republican is elected President won’t he, like George W. Bush did previously, take military spending off the national budget’s balance sheet and then “abracadabra!” quick as a flash, there will be no deficit and the road to recovery will be smooth sailing for the rest of his term.
To hear the Democrats tell it, if George W. Romney gets elected, he will liquidate the New Deal as fast as possible. Duh, again! If the Republicans scrap the Social Security Program, there won’t be any need to tax the rich, eh?
The Democrats worship Obama to an uncomfortable degree. Isn’t it time to send Willard up there to replace him in the White House? BFH! Are Obama’s methods unsound? Ask some Republicans and they (and their subservient old ladies) will tell you: “I don’t see any method at all!”
What’s the difference between a punk, a rebel (with or without a cause), an outlaw, a rocker, a soccer hooligan, and an Occupy protester?
If there is no difference why don’t some punk rockers, rebels and outlaws hold a benefit concert to raise funds to buy foreclosed buildings to house the tent cities protesters? Do they think that if they raise the money, the banks won’t sell them the abandoned unused office buildings?
A lot of musicians have made a considerable amount of money posing as punks, rebels, and outlaws. If they are going to talk the talk, shouldn’t they be willing to walk the walk?
The Rolling Stones band once made headlines in Great Britain by proclaiming: “We’re the Rolling Stones; we piss anywhere.” Was that a sneak preview of the Occupy Movement? All they gotta do is play one benefit concert, one time and then the Occupy Posse will have enough money to buy foreclosed office buildings in (guessing) twenty five strategic cities?
Have the boys from Altamont suddenly become The Rolling Stones Inc.?
When the Rolling Stones got into some legal troubles (over a closed men’s room?) in Great Britain, the Who went into a studio and cut a cover of a Rolling Stones song as a show of solidarity. (We’ve seen a copy of the record in Dr. Demento’s private collection.)
Back in the day, the Stones had a legal obligation to deliver an album and so they did. Unfortunately, the material they delivered was unsuitable to their corporate masters and so the project was shelved. The name of the album can’t be printed in a family newspaper. Try a Google search for the “Rolling Stones” and “contractual obligation album,” if you want to find the name the band suggested.
Jerry Lee Lewis had one song with a line that asked “How much would you pay to hear a living legend sing?”
Is it true that Guns ‘n’ Roses, who opened for the Rolling Stones during the Steel Wheels tour, will be inducted into the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame this year? Who recorded the song “Time slips away”? Or was it titled “Where Does the Time go?”?
How much money could a benefit concert raise if the lineup featured (hypothetically speaking) Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, the Who, the Kinks, and Furthur (the band formerly known as The Grateful Dead)? This columnist paid $8 plus change for a ticket to see the Rolling Stones in Anaheim in 1978 (or so); concert tickets would probably cost more these days. (Just guessing.)
[Note: the World’s Laziest Journalist assumes that if a band didn’t play a gig before January 1, 1970, it is too new and untried to merit serious consideration – although the guys with the band called “U2” are showing some promise.]
Good conservative musicians don’t seem to hesitate when Sean Hannity puts out an invitation to play an annual benefit concert to help the Marines. What up with all the rock musicians who make sizable fortunes singing about the salt of the earth and working man’s blues? Can they get their accountants to grant them permission to play just one Occupy Aid type concert gratis?
The Republican debates are getting the Republican viewpoint out to the public. Why aren’t the Democrats having debates during the primary season? Are they subscribing to the “No dissention” among the ranks philosophy these days?
No concert. No debates. No hoopla? How do they expect to win in November?
President Nixon, President Reagan, and President George W. Bush all seemed to intuitively know the wisdom of W. C. Fields’ advice about a second term: “If a thing’s worth having; it’s worth cheating for.” The last two Democratic Presidents elected to two full terms in office were Bill Clinton and FDR.
Now the disk jockey will play the Cowsills’ “We Can Fly,” Them’s “Here Comes the Night,” and the Zombies’ “Is This the Dream?” We have to go see what’s happening with Occupy Oakland. Have a “Feeling Groovy” type week.