Democratic senators are still emerging from their closed-door briefing with Obama economic adviser Larry Summers ... but a senior Democratic senator, Iowa progressive Tom Harkin, just gave me a dire buzzword: trickle-down.
"There's only one thing we've got to do in this stimulus, and that's create jobs," Harkin told me. "I'm a little concerned by the way Mr. Summers and others are going on this ... it still looks a little more to me like trickle-down."
Likening Barack Obama's economic recovery plan to the failed supply-side excesses of the Reagan and Bush years is a bit of a Cassandra moment. But Harkin didn't back down. "What I'm hearing from Mr. Summers is that they've got a different approach -- tax breaks, and this and that," he said. Harkin warned that, much like the outcome of George Bush's $600 stimulus package last year, recipients of quick tax cuts "are going to be salting it away, not spending it."
Damn, I love Harkin. A Dem willing to stand up for working people.
Congress will have to fix Obama's plan. This is why many of us critcized Summers when so many on Daily Kos said Obama made policy. Whether it's Obama or Summers, or both, it's trickle down and it's the wrong way.
Meanwhile, Pelosi stepped up. Now, I know people are disappointed with her on impeachment and other things, but she is to the left of Obama:
Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters Thursday that she wants to see the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy repealed "as early as possible."
The call for repeal may place Pelosi at odds with President-elect Obama; during the campaign he called for repeal but his aides have since indicated that due to the deteriorating economy, he was leaning towards allowing them to expire.
Asked again after her press conference about the tax cuts, the Speaker said she is "urging repeal."
Pelosi noted that the Congressional Budget Office has determined that the tax cuts are the biggest contributor to the ballooning deficit. "Put me down as clearly as you possibly can as one who wants to have those tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans repealed," she said.
And Senators Kerry, Conrad and Wyden are stepping up:
WASHINGTON-President-elect Barack Obama's proposed tax cuts ran into opposition Thursday from senators in his own party who said they wouldn't do much to stimulate the economy or create jobs.
Senators from both parties agreed that Congress should do something to stimulate the economy. But Democratic senators emerging from a private meeting of the Senate Finance Committee criticized business and individual tax cuts in Obama's stimulus plan.
They were especially critical of a proposed $3,000 tax credit for companies that hire or retrain workers.
"If I'm a business person, it's unlikely if you give me a several-thousand-dollar credit that I'm going to hire people if I can't sell the products they're producing," said Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., a member of the committee.
"That to me is just misdirected," Conrad said.
Sen John Kerry, D-Mass., said, "I'd rather spend the money on the infrastructure, on direct investment, on energy conversion, on other kinds of things that much more directly, much more rapidly and much more certainly create a real job."
The cost of the economic rescue package Obama wants is expected to swell to $800 billion or more. About $300 billion of Obama's package would be for tax cuts or refunds for individuals and businesses.
snip
Rep. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said he doubted that a modest tax cut would change consumers' spending habits.
"In tough times people don't respond all that well to marginal changes, such as a small amount of money added per paycheck," Wyden said.
While those of you attending the Inauguration may be staying over for a few days, either before or after, you may find this a restful and enlightening venue to stop in and visit.
1/1-31 Georgetown: The Peace Mural, the unbelievable 2,000 paintings exhibition of art on war, peace, and torture that the Vietnamese-American artist Huong has on display in a 10,000 square foot gallery on M Street in Georgetown: Peace Mural Foundation
About the Artist HUONG: A young journalist at the time of the Vietnam War, Huong climbed aboard one of the last refugee boats before the fall of Saigon, wearing only one shoe and carrying her infant son in arms. She first settled in Alaska where she swapped her pen for a brush in an effort to"paint out" the passions within her. Eventually she launched an art career that has captured the attention of art audiences and critics internationally. Not unlike Picasso's own war protest painting Guernica, Huong's paintings collectively form a body of work addressing the global issues of war and peace. Through hundreds of painted canvases, the Peace Mural is a symbol of Huong's determination to purge our culture from the ways of war and to advance an emerging culture of peace.
An inspiring video introduction about the artist Huong, her Peace Mural, and the mission of the Peace Mural Foundation, Inc. (6 min)
And
Vietnamese Artist Huong Strives for Peace
Here are a few links to view some of her work right now:
For much more information and directions etc. visit The Peace Mural Comes to Washington A Time for Change ... A Time for Peace ... The Time is Now
For abit more information you might want to read this Washington Post article In Images of War, a Plea for Peace Artist Lost Father, Brother Before Fleeing Vietnam in a Small Boat in 1975
"Peace is simple," said the Vietnamese-born artist known as Huong.
Gliding through gallery rooms in Georgetown, where thousands of her paintings are on exhibit, Huong, a onetime war refugee, swept an arm toward one wall, then another.
"Very simple. . . . See?"
Here, on two floors, is her vision of peace, shaped by personal pain and expressed vividly on canvass, her style influenced by cubism.
There you will also find a slide show of Huong and her work.
As everyone knows there will be much more going on both prior to and into the days after this Historic, on so many levels, Inauguration of President Barack Obama.
Let us Hope a New Page is turning on the real direction of this Country, not of what we like to think and say we are But Become Those Words and Actions, not only for us but for the World!
As Leaders Lead By Example, our examples have been the Negative, especially extreme negatives against even our own Laws, those Examples we've followed are how we're perceived now and have been these long seven years and will be into the near future!
Here's hoping we can rapidly change those tragic examples and lead as we should, it's up to us for those to come!
With less than two weeks until the inauguration, it is time for the next batch of work in support of The Citizens Petition. One that will take a fair amount of 'grunt work' and toil. But of course, many hands make light work!
The next phase, as I see it, is assembling 'the case.' What I have in mind is along the lines of a timeline of the major Bushco crimes, for presentation along with the petition.....and to use as a platform for promoting the petition on the blogs. Spelling out in as plain and concise....and frankly in as shocking a fashion, as we can.
From Cheney's "Energy Commission" on...the truth is out there! Let's do the best job we can in getting it all in one place in an easy to digest form.
Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to dump links here and in the essays to come. News stories, congressional reports, even anecdotes that document the crimes of Dick and George and their merry minions. I (and any one who wishes to volunteer!) will then go through them and try to assemble them in some kind of order and presentation that will be damning enough to get attention. The results will then be open to changes etc. just like the petition.
This will be in effect the appendix that we talked about when we were working on the petition proper. So search your memories, your bookmarks and teh google and see what you can come up with. And of course ALL ideas and input are welcome, both on this phase and any other ways to support and circulate the petition. We have given folks time for a breather so as not to become annoying spammers in support of the petition, but now it is time for the next Big Push, just before the inauguration frenzy. Once that has died down...and Holder has been confirmed (we might want to work a bit on supporting that as well, lol, considering that the Repubs seem to be shaking in their boots at the thought of accountability) we can make a fuss about presenting the petition.
There are times in your life when things are going bad, or your sick or whatever when we all flee to the comforts of our lives. Lots of folks have comfort foods, usually something that your Mom would make you when you were a kid (My Mom used to heat up concentrated lemon aide, don't roll your eyes until you try it sometime!). The Dog does that but when he is really in need of comfort he flees to some of his favorite books. Why is this an issue? Well, the world is really crappy right now (three wars, two genocides, and an world economy on life support) plus it is the time of year that Dad died in 5 years ago. This has left the ol' Hound running to some of his best loved books. Since the Dog is a compulsive essayist, he thought he would share a few of these "Comfort Books" with you in the hopes that you might find the same level of comfort.
Let's start with a classic (very loose definition here):
The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein - Yeah, RAH could hardly be thought of as liberal in his politics, but his books had this undeniable call to take the action you feel necessary for change. That is the lesson the Dog got from his works and this book is a fine example. The sentient computer Mike was the Dogs first introduction to the idea of non-human sentience. Combined with the sprawling family structure of the exile families this book charms the pants off of me every time. With its message of the fight for freedom being a good one, if you are willing to live with the consequences, this is a book the Dog picks up whenever the he feels that political action is futile. If you have not read it, you really should.
The Hobbit (Or There and Back Again) by J.R.R. Tolkien - Sure, everyone has read the Lord of the Rings, but the gentler and less epic Hobbit is a great book to curl up with for a rainy Sunday afternoon. Slipping into that story is like staying at Grandmas house and getting the bed with the flannel sheets. The warmth and good nature of Bilbo and his terribly earnest nature are enough to recharge any battery that needs it. After all if a very respectable Hobbit like Mr. Bagins can help return the Dwarves to their home, then our challenges can not be that hard.
Fallen Dragon by Peter F. Hamilton - This is a newer book, but just fabulous space opera all the same. It is set in the 24th Century and while the book is about war, cooperate greed and the future path of humanity, there is a comfort in the ending (no spoilers here!). The book makes the trails of its protagonists worthwhile, if not always (or ever) easy or clearly moral. The main message of the book is that while some will have grand designs for all of mankind there is something to be said for knowing when you have a good thing and living that life for all it is worth.
Glory Season by David Brin - This is book about a young woman on a distant planet. It is a coming of age story, set against the back drop of a society where the basic unit of humanity are cloned (by parthenogenesis) and men are the vast minority. The world is coming back into contact with the rest of the Human Phylum and there is much social upheaval. Again it is a story where the good triumph (though not without cost) but that is not the same as saying that it fixes everything. This is the book that the Dog reads to remind himself that the end of one issue is just the start of another. The main character Maya is never quits. She can be beaten, but that is not the same as giving up.
The Night Side Series by Simon Green. These are great popcorn reads. They follow the adventures of a psychic detective who can find anything by opening his third eye, you know his private eye! It is all set in the Night Side, the secret heart of London, where gods, demons, angles, and worse go to let their hair down and party. The books are all short and pretty violent, but are filled with tons of puns and sarcastic humor. Think of them as tune up for snarky blogging.
So, that is what the Dog has read in the last two weeks, what about you? What are you comfort books and most importantly why?
It's clear to this unbiased observer that Hell froze over as the hand-basket arrived.
It's clear the October Surprise was to saddle the in-his-heart progressive, Obama, with a fucking millennial nightmare to thwart any meaningful change which might have occurred under a regime with a human heart.
It's the Peace Dividend all over again. There was no respite after the Cold War. The military-industrial-complex wanted more and more. Are Bush and Cheney anything more than sock-puppets for the military-industrial-complex? It's a war-lord world and we've got the guns to sell.
Why do these so-called "leaders" hate people so much? There are six and a half billion people on the planet. A third is starving. A third is slaves under oppressive regimes. A bunch more are teetering on the razor's edge of consumer collapse. And a very, very few totter around like drunk Marie Antoinette's wondering what all the fuss is about. Why is the left so angry and why do the right strap bombs on and blow up beauty parlors?
I feel sorry for Obama. I really do. (Assuming he isn't a tool of the Illuminati, of course.) Here's a relatively young man forged in a true hero mold, with ideals filling his head about how much better the human condition could be and WHAM!!!
THE WORLD IS ON FIRE.
And while Bush fiddles with his legacy and Obama counts his political capital, civilization is in freefall. The capital markets, which evidently are not built upon capital but hyperbole and chutzpah, are revealed as nothing more than a shell-game where people are fleeced on the street and wake up to find their wallet missing the next morning.
Isn't the only process due Madoff a bullet to the brain? In Saudi Arabia they cut off your hand for stealing an apple from a cart. In China they execute you for stealing paper clips from the office. But in America, swindlers and war criminals are ex-presidents and celebrities and anyway, you voted for Bush twice and the collapse of western civilization is due to a few bad apples.
WTF?
The People of the United States of America (as well as hundreds of millions in other countries) have just witnessed the greatest financial swindle since FUCKING NEVER!
And I'm not talking about Madoff, but Paulson, Bernanke, Greenspan, Friedman (may he burn in hell) Rubin, Summers etc. et al.
What's 50 Billion when you can get 10 Trillion? Money which did not even exist before but we still owe as if it did exist.
Did you have any say over the bailout? Most of us opposed it and the House voted against it initially. That 750 Billion turned out to be a drop in the bucket and all of it has been flushed down the toilet like the Two Trillion the Pentagon lost, which Rumsfeld admitted a couple days before 911.
Of course, the money isn't lost; it's stolen.
Remember the old saw which war-criminal President Bush mangled beyond recognition? Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me.
Well, Fool, is mild compared to how many times we Americans have been suckered by the ruling elites and their political principle: Kill the poor, suck the worker, sack the treasury and invest in private security firms.
Right now the system is being propped up by nothing more than belief the system exists. But as more and more see this great Capitalist system as nothing but a Bankster with no Clothes, then the closer we all come to freefall.
The safety nets were cut away long ago. The agencies and institutions meant to help citizens in distress from natural and/or man-made disasters are all bankrupt or begging for help themselves.
Did I hear something about the Porn Industry asking for a government bailout?
If Vice is suffering then you know it's bad out there. I've just invested in the bathtub gin industry. There's always money to be made through misfortune.
Meanwhile, as the global economy is revealed as nothing more than a parlor trick, the world is made more and more dangerous as more and more people are put in war-zones, refugee camps, or left on the streets to die because who cares. Does the man clinging to the life-raft help save the man swimming to it when the life-raft is already dangerously over-crowded?
Wars are fomented in the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa and South America. Civil unrest is expected and prepared for in the United States, the UK and Europe. The weapons industry works overtime to fill the gaps in urban warfare, crowd control and mass detention.
The world is not the same it was in 1929. Mass communication and successful propagandizing of ideals have made a populace who can take a lot, but when the tipping point is reached, we are a people who can mobilize in numbers which threaten retail sales and Saturday matinees, not to mention the rule of, for and by The Few - and I don't mean The Marines.
Americans have been taught Entitlement. America is Exceptional in the realm of nations. Some even believe God watches over and protects America.
So when America goes south, it doesn't have to go very far before people start saying WTF is going on here?
Why do you think Congress was threatened with a country under Martial Law if the Great Swindle wasn't passed? The banks were bailed out because they lost all your retirement savings in Ponzi scheme investments and a hundred million Americans who just learned they have no money saved up for the Golden Years aren't going to take it like sheep. It's one thing to be sheared, it's quite another to have your heart ripped out and eaten raw in some kind of Bohemian Grove ritual where the Elites laugh at the "common man" for being such fucking idiots to let morons and psychopaths like the elite lead the people around by the nose like a great lumbering Oxen.
There is another shoe to drop. After eight years of psychopathic America blowing shit up because someone, still unknown, knocked our buildings down, we end with a financial collapse of the Universe's biggest ponzi scheme, the "free market", and now face more wars, more human misery, more intramural strife, more acts of desperation, more retaliation, more punishment, more and more people living hand to mouth, huddled together for warmth and protection in "poverty zones" out of sight of decent people, but where it's understood the cops won't shake you down or check your identification for debtor's warrants.
The view from here is only one small step ahead of reality. We're only a perceived threat away from martial law and a few more institutional meltdowns away from stone-age bartering and weekly craft fairs.
I've never been in freefall more than six-feet or so before hitting bottom. It's not enough distance to really know the sensation of freefall. Skydivers know. But skydivers don't feel the terror of a hard landing because they know the whole reason they're in freefall in the first place is the parachute. Hallelujah!
Maybe that's why CEOs never seem to give a fuck. Parachutes.
But what about those of us who recognize the fall but can't see the bottom and have no breaking mechanism from the fall to soften our landing? What happens when you hard-land and find yourself in a world without a penny or possession but the clothes on your back and the content of your character?
This is the question on my mind lately. After hitting bottom, will people repeat the mistakes and behaviors of the past and bust ourselves back to a feudal system of warlords and loathing or can people, who for ten thousand years have known nothing but violence and fear, and now see their once vaunted civilization amount to nothing more than a giant King of the Hill match, transcend what is expected of us and instead forge a new way with the human heart as its foundation instead of merely 'cleverness'?
We shall see. We enter a nightmare. Obama is our champion. Will he hit the ground running? Or will he just hit bottom?
