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The Unity of Progressives and Government

by Larry Sakin

The main social responsibility of government is to enhance our collective and individual quality of life. The government does this by protecting our social security, our intellectual security and our health security.

Over the last twenty-five years, we have seen our government diminish its social responsibility to her citizens and instead act as lead salesperson for corporate interests that donate the largest part of campaign funds to local, state, and national leaders.

Government has forgotten that we have the RIGHT to be happy. In order to be happy we need a higher quality of life. We need to also keep a high quality of life to keep Americans in America and to keep the unity and strength of this country. When we have a lower quality of life than many other countries then what are we working for? Read more

Guess Who’s Getting Stimulated

by Larry Sakin

All the pomp and circumstance of Barack Obama’s election to the presidency is over. Now, Mr. Obama and his administration are rolling up their sleeves getting down to the business of running the country.

Their first major initiative, the 2009 Economic Stimulus Package is now being picked apart by various House committees for a fine tuning before an early February vote. The package itself has some fine programs attached to it for working and middle class people but for the most part, it is tax giveaway to the corporations that paid for Obama’s campaign. Read more

Money Talks and You Know What Walks

by Larry Sakin

I find the naivete of some progressive endearing. The economic crisis that has bound up the United States the last few years has left us with a weakened impression around the world, and it’s always during these times that foreign military actions are taken. The most recent is the recalcitrant invasion of the Palestinian Gaza Strip by old nemesis Israel, which stubbornly refuses to live in peace with her neighbors.

Of course, the Israeli’s are saying they are fighting the good terrorism fight by going after Hamas, an Arab organization dedicated to Palestinian autonomy and keeping Israel from usurping any more of the country than it already has. American progressives are fuming over the Israeli aggression (with good cause), and are asking heir apparent to the American throne Barack Obama to end the Israeli siege.
Read more

Economic Prozac

by Larry Sakin

As the inauguration of Barack Obama as new king of America approaches, more news has come from his under lords on the fiscal plan he’ll be foisting upon Congress soon. It wasn’t that long ago that the new king’s coterie announced the flip flop of no new payroll taxes on the upper crust. Just days ago, court jester David Axelrod revealed the big tax cut to the middle class, $1,000 for couples and $500 for individuals. What Axelrod tried to conceal is these cuts will be made to payroll taxes, excluding millions of unemployed and soon to be unemployed Americans.

The plan has an estimated cost of $140 billion to a treasury already bloated with debt from damaging tax cuts and corporate bailouts concocted by the Bush Administration and Congress. It’s a problem because eventually the government will have to pay this debt, whether through tax increases or through gouging popular domestic programs. More importantly, the people who need relief the most, the burgeoning unemployed, will have to look elsewhere for relief. The squeeze of two incomes into one or one income into none is an extraordinary burden during the current financial meltdown. More homes will go into foreclosure, and banks will be more reluctant to lend to consumers at the end of their fiscal ropes. Read more

Killing the Messenger

by Larry Sakin

In a colleagues’ recent editorial, the mainstream media was taken to task. According to the writer, corporate-owned news outlets are attempting to tie the albatross of the Blagojevich scandal around the neck of the incoming Obama administration. The writer further asserts that big media favors attacking left-leaning administrations for their so-called new ideas over investigating the spurious activities of the right.

This is not a new opinion among the liberal oriented side of the blogosphere. Everyone from “911-Truth” seekers to stolen elections and Bush impeachment advocates have condemned the major news outlets because these outlets don’t investigate what advocates think they should. But what these progressively minded opinion swillers fail to mention is how often big media does critique those on the right. Read more

Progressive Narcolepsy

by Larry Sakin

On the way to his inauguration in January 2001, newly installed President George W. Bush’s motorcade was pelted with eggs by American protesters. During his final visit to Iraq this month, a nation his administration shattered into a million pieces, he was pelted by a shoe.

And so the formulaic film that was the Bush Administration ends, limping off into the sunset with self-inflicted battle wounds to be succored in the isolation of his ranch in Crawford Texas. For many progressives, the Bush years are counted by his arrogant and inept approach towards ‘democratic rule’, reigning over the American people and the rest of the world with a madness only comparable to serial killers, in-bred kings, and cannibalistic dictators. But what few progressives are willing to note is that Bush is among the most successful presidents of our time. Read more

The Responsibility of Leaders

by Larry Sakin

Tuesday’s announcement of the Illinois Senate scandal may become the first true test of president-elect Barack Obama’s leadership ability. The state’s governor, Rod Blagojevich, has been arrested on corruption charges for allegedly putting Obama’s former position on sale to the highest bidder.

Obama’s winning campaign was based on change, not only for the world but within the very close confines of Washington and state politics. They are tough nuts to crack, as corruption in both quarters is endemic. It’s easy for party loyalists to hurl accusations at each other, but distancing yourself from your own is extremely challenging. Obama has not only watched his ally Blagojevich go down, but also enduring the inquiry into friend and mentor Congressman Charlie Rangel’s questionable ethics. Read more

The Content of His Character

by Larry Sakin

It hadn’t hit me until I saw it in a comment to a recent article. “I never believed we could elect a black man president in my lifetime” wrote the commentator. From this I derived that she felt that now, in America, almost anything could be accomplished. Then a couple of days ago, I read in the Harper’s Index that Jesse Jackson believes not only that the election of a black American history making, but that a whole new chapter to the Bible could be added to chronicle the event.

Perhaps I’m missing the point here, but it seems to me that focusing on President-elect Barack Obama’s race is kind of an insult to the idea Dr. Martin Luther King set forth in his “I Have A Dream” speech; in which he envisioned a day when his four children “were not judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Read more

I Hate to Say I Told You So

by Larry Sakin

My, my, my, it’s only been three weeks since starry-eyed Americans voted Senator Barack Obama into the presidency, and already he’s walking away from many of his promises.

The latest came today, when aides to the president elect said the economic stimulus plan Obama will present would not include any of the tax increases Obama, as a candidate, had said he would impose on taxpayers who make more than $250,000.

This is not a surprise, considering Obama’s choices for his cabinet so far, and his pick for chief of staff.

Let’s start with that chief of staff, Congressman Rahm Emmanuel. As is now known by many, Emmanuel became a Wall Street whiz-kid after leaving President Bill Clinton’s staff in 1998. He is the son of a former Israeli terrorist, and believes strongly in supporting Israel’s efforts to hold the Middle East under her sway. Emmanuel supported President Bush’s plan to invade Iraq, and has gone on record with his support for an American military role in Iran. Read more

The Constitutional Priority of the Status Quo

by Larry Sakin

It’s been nearly two weeks since the presidential elections; the progressives are still celebrating Barack Obama’s triumph over John McCain. Bloggers have been thumping their chests and waving fists in the air, enthralled more by the sport of politics than the policies it portends. It’s too bad their memories are so short. Just two years ago, progressives were in a celebratory mood when the Democrats took over Congress, only to be disappointed a few months later.

Of course, the Democrats they elected had a grand excuse- “still too many Republicans here” they said, “you didn’t elect enough of us” So all of our fragile hopes for a quick resolve to the war on terrorism, end of tax cuts for the rich, and the impeachment of George W. Bush were heaped upon the dustbin of history.  Read more

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• Letter to the Editor: Good Cars need Good Teams - by R. A. Letcher, PhD

  Good cars need good teams -- designers, engineers, line workers… and learning-oriented managers by Robert A. Letcher, PhD [Author’s note: I submitted the following as a letter to the editor of The New York Times, after that paper carried an article under the headline, "To Fix Detroit, Obama Is Said to Drop Plan for ‘Car Czar’", 02/15/2009.] It is widely accepted that you can't win a horse race without a good horse. Of course, it helps to have a lot of money and a good plan for spending it. But, you still need a good horse. The authors reminded me of this when they wrote: “The companies’ plans are required to show progress in cutting long-term costs as a condition for keeping their loans.” I doubt GM and Chrysler can win this most important "automobile race" merely by having better accountants and more muscular negotiators: they still need a good "horse". That means the companies will have to show that their teams can still design and build cars that people are drawn to buy and willing to pay for: winners. I doubt they can. The problem isn't that they didn't know how to; it's that they don't know how to break out of the group-think that ensnarled them, their managers, their whole organizations, decades ago. I would be more optimistic, had the government also required the companies to include plans for transforming themselves into learning organizations. Aye, there’s the rub: learning entails risk-taking, not “yes people”.

• Bob's Bail Out Plan by bobl-tlm

  

• Fiscal Therapy - Getting the economy back on its feet, giving taxpayers a break, saving your retirement fund and your kid's college tuition? Done. And it won't cost you a penny.

  For years now, whenever I've been invited to lecture students on how our tax system works, I have asked a simple question: What is the purpose of the United States of America? The most common answer, be it at prestigious universities, elite prep schools, rural community colleges, or crowded urban high schools, is this: To make people rich. This should come as no great surprise. For anyone born after, say, 1970, the world has been shaped by Ronald Reagan's remaking of government's relationship with private interests—a vision of lower taxes, less regulation, and maximum economic leeway for those at the top. In this view, the pursuit of wealth is the warp and weft of America; everything else will follow. By contrast, the preamble to the Constitution tells us the nation's reason for being in 52 words that can be reduced to six principles: society, justice, peace, security, commonwealth, and freedom. Individual riches don't make the list. They are a product of American society, not its guiding purpose. Progress, then, must begin with a return to the best of the values that created this Second American Republic—one born, it's worth remembering, from the failure of the Articles of Confederation, whose principles (weak government, unfettered capitalism) found their resurrection in the economic policies of the past three decades.

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  read more at Mother Jones

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• How Do You Like Deregulation Now? graphic politics by Dicky Neely

  

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