Angry Dad

This is the kind of thing that gets me all fired up in the morning.

Let's Keep Defining It Down

You want a great example of everything that's been wrong with the Democratic party since the third-way Democrats took over in the early 1990s? Take a good look at former Clintonite and current a-hole Matt Miller's piece from the WaPo. Matt takes on us crazy liberals who believe that without a government option, health care reform ain't worth spit. Actually, like all good centrist Dems, he ignores actual arguments from the left in favor of shooting down the charactures of arguments from the left.

Matt comes out swing and labeling. First, "the left" is "dangerous" because we are opposed to the wonders of "the biggest progressive achievement in half a century," which says a lot more about the last half century than it does about the dangerous left.

In the next paragraph the dangerous left becomes "Democrats" and/or "liberals" who have mindlessly been led astray by unnamed leaders who say that without a public option, health care "reform" is a waste of time.

Matt takes on the liberal, Democrat, dangerous left leaders. Apparently, we believe without a Medicare-style public option, there will be no way to cover everyone. Matt trumps us with the Netherlands and Switzerland. They have universal coverage and private insurance. Their health system is better and cheaper. Boom, dangerous leftists destroyed by real-world facts.

What Matt fails to mention, of course, is that while the Swiss have private insurance, they don't allow for-profit insurers to participate in the basic plan. This seems like an important distinction, as getting rid of for-profit insurance would certainly lower costs in the US and is not an idea that anybody is proposing right now. Other than that, yes the Swiss example is spot on.

Oh and, while were here, maybe Matt can throw out an insane right-wing talking point.

In fact, as these two countries show, it is possible to cover everyone without a “big government takeover.”

Matt continues by reminding us that the public option is not the most important thing. The most important thing is providing all Americans "access" to group health coverage outside of the employment context. Matt sees this happen through the wonders of the regional co-ops.

The central progressive breakthrough in any reform should be to make it possible for every American to access group health coverage outside the employment setting — access that does not currently exist but which the proposed insurance exchanges would enable. What’s critical, therefore, is the structure of these exchanges and the rules about who would be eligible to use them.

That's right. Matt has managed to define the essential need of health care reform from universal coverage with effective, quality health care to access to something. And the real danger, as it always is to a Clintonite is that if we don't get about compromising with the Republicans over the crumb they might allow us, well they might just take it away.

Matt then spends a few paragraphs attacking the one thing that nobody is proposing, but would actually solve a lot of problems - single-payer. Can you guess why single-payer would be bad? Did you guess that the crushing hand of government bureaucracy would stifle innovation? You guessed right!

On the eve of beneficial innovations in drug therapies, devices and cost-­effective ways to deliver better care, it is ill-advised to make the government’s hand too rigid.

Oh glory day we are on the eve of! Oh happy future! When? How? Unanswered, but assured.

Liberals should make peace with the notion that a regulated market of competing private health plans can be the vehicle for getting everyone covered. Yes, it means that unlike some other advanced countries, we’ll have billions of “health” dollars siphoned off by middlemen and marketers.

But if liberals think of it as a jobs program, they’ll learn to love it. If everyone’s covered and insurer “cherry-­picking” is dead, health insurance will come to look more like a regulated utility.

A regulated market "can" be a vehicle for accomplishing the half-assed goal of getting everyone "covered," sure. Let's not for a moment stop to consider what kind of coverage for how much and who benefits. Those issues pale in comparison to the larger goal of making sure everyone has "access" to "coverage." And even if the whole thing turns out just like a non-governmental Enron-type utility, so much the better. I will rest easy knowing that there are lots of middle men employed in the business of denying the claims of poor people, because, in the end, it's all about jobs, jobs, jobs, n'est pas?

Loving the Tier 1 Attitude

The GTFF filed a grievance against the Art Department for violating the hell out of the Collective Bargaining Agreement and their own internal policies. Like I always, I spent hours putting the grievance together, gathering facts, talking with our members, trying to settle with the UO. We had a Step 3 meeting with the UO's grievance officer for the GTFF. I presented a half hour of argument, the UO's representative from the Grad School did the same. At the end, the grievance officer from the UO asks each side to submit written statements. I indicate that I am going on vacation, but will come into the office to write something up. The Grad School agrees to write up a statement. The UO's grievance officer indicates he's going to need more than e working days to read all this and come up with a decision. We all agree that he can take another week.

I spent four hours crafting a six-page argument detailing each contract violation. The UO's representative from the Grad School was out sick, but she, too, came in and spent some time making careful arguments about the case. Her document was also about six pages, with many pages of supporting documents.

We got the decision yesterday and, aside from some boilerplate, here is the judgment that the UO's grievance officer came to after carefully weighing the twelve pages of argument, plus the supporting documents, detailing ten allegations of contract violation:

The GTFF alleged that the Art Department failed to give preference to applicants who are further advanced in the program. However, there are other factors that are also given special consideration with respect to assignments such as a student’s special skills. Therefore, it was not proven that the Art Department failed to give preference to applicants who are further advanced in the program.

Lesson learned.

New Leadership, Please

You know what just about the most "un-American" thing I can think of is? A Congressional leader calling his or her political opponents "un-American" for protesting government actions. Let's call them ugly, loud-mouth, ignorant SOBs, but let's leave un-American out of it.

For fuck's sake. This is what our political opponents do. They brand dissent as un-patriotic. To them Code Pink is just shy of an official terrorist organization. What do they do? They stand up at meetings, shout down the speaker, and make their voices heard. We admire them. We admire anyone who has the courage to stand up to the powers that be and makes their voice heard.

And these townhall protesters are no different than we are. Well, I guess I'd like to believe that they're wrong, whereas my lefty groups are right, but how can for one hot minute anyone who reads this blog think that these people have invalid views or don't deserve to be heard just because they were organized into going to an event by Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh. I am a union organizer, I am astroturf by definition. Sure, members may walk into my office to tell me about some issue they have and I can use my skills to organize them, but this never happens over politics. Nope, I'm out there trying to get three to five people to show up for some half-assed rally. Let's just take (and leave) EFCA as an example.

Lastly, I will not abide by my leadership pretending like a townhall meeting means something. That they are some genuine exchange of views between a Congressperson and the citizens. That Peter Defazio has yet to make up his mind about this crazy health care bill and that the fine citizens of Drain, Oregon are going to provide some magical insight that really opens his eyes. It's bullshit and we all know it. Townhalls, at best, provide a politician political cover or anecdotes, otherwise they are pretty useless. Somehow the thought that organized hicks might be standing up and making a mockery of these dog and pony shows does not rock me to my American core. They always were political theater, the last thing we should be upset about is that they'll be good political theater. Heaven knows, if it weren't for the chance that I might be engaged is some actual heated political yelling, I doubt that I'd be driving down to the Grove tomorrow at 8 am to hear Defazio spout hackneyed talking points for a bill he probably doesn't genuinely support - which, in my book, is pretty un-American.

I Swear to G*d

Good times in the R-G mailbag this week.

On May 15th, the R-G ran a story about Jimmy Marr, a Springfield man having his personalize license plate recalled by the state because someone complained it had an anti-Semitic message. His license plate read "NO ZOG" a reference to the belief that the Zionist Occupation Government runs, not so much Israel, but the world, through their control of the banks, media, and most fast food franchises. His truck was spotted at a Phoenix, Oregon gathering of neo-Nazis*, and a Medford teacher complained, so the state recalled the plate.

“This got by us the first time and didn’t trigger any” controversy, DMV spokesman David House said. “But we got a complaint about it and discovered that it is an anti-Jewish message.”
...
House said a nine-member panel of state officials reviewed the matter and decided — after doing a bit of Internet research — to recall Marr’s plate.

They sent Marr a letter last week informing him of the ruling.

“It was a pretty easy call,” House said. “All you have to do is Google it to see what it means. And members of the targeted group know what it means.”

I read the article at the time, but didn't think much of it. Idiot has his plate recalled for being an asshole.

The first letter to the editor in support of Jimmy Marr was a classic. Not in the sense that it was great, but that it was a favorite argument of mine from way back. Some of you may know that I spent some time in grad school studying the Mother's Movement, a group of pro-fascist women opposed to US involvement in WWII. Most of the group was deeply anti-Semitic and I spent several Saturday afternoons in Portland reading obscure anti-Semitic newsletters. After the war, as the Birchers got rolling, it was easy for these women to transition into the anti-UN, anti-Israel movement. When accused of being anti-Semites, they often countered that since Palestinians were Semitic, they couldn't possibly be anti-Semitic, but it was, rather, Israel that was anti-Semitic what with their policy of killing Palestinians. Much like the blacks are racist because they voted for Obama thinking of today.

Justin Harris comes oh-so-close to making the "Jews are the real anti-Semites" argument, but since he seems to think Palestinians are Arab, he kind of fumbles it:

Anti-Zionism is not anti-Jewish

The “No Zog” license plate is not anti-Semitic or anti-Jewish; it is anti-Zionist (Register-Guard, May 15). The Zionists are a group, not the entire Jewish people.

Jimmy Marr obviously takes exception to the Zionist platform to remove all Arab Palestinians from all Israel territory, including the Gaza Strip and West Bank. He believes the continuous police state that the Palestinian people live under is equivalent to occupation. He is exercising his free speech. In Oregon we don’t call it bashing, we call it thinking.

Mark Pitcavage of the Anti-­Defamation League also confuses the issues by inferring that anyone who uses the acronym in support of the Palestinian people is of the extreme right, whereas it is the fundamental Zionist approach that all lands written of in the Bible belong to Israel; only that is an extreme right position. Thomas Aquinas famously said, “Beware the man of one book.”

Citing sources that disparage a free-Palestine supporter while also presuming the blamelessness of the Zionist movement (all Jewish persons are not all Zionists) is like the pot calling the kettle black.

Maybe the Anti-Defamation League is a hate group.

Using the term anti-Semitic in a bold headline, like terrorists and terrorism, becomes ineffectual when used in a deceptive manner. The tone of the article suggests that Marr is guilty of something criminal in the forum of public opinion. I believe the article borders on abuse of journalism’s standard of ethics.

Justin Harris

Springfield

It was good, but Justin and Jimmy must have not thought it went far enough, because today Jimmy hit the back pages with his own stirring defense of himself and the purity of his beliefs with this gem, which I am sure will be memorized and recited by school children all across this great land long after the ZOG is dead:

Who elected Google?

My “NO ZOG” license plates have been recalled (Register-Guard, May 15). I’d like my fellow Oregonians to help me figure out who is responsible for this. David House, spokesman for the state Driver and Motor Vehicle Services division, said, “It was a pretty easy call. All you have to do is Google it to see what it means.”

Who elected Google Corp. to define meaning for Oregonians? Do Oregonians lack the capacity for critical thinking? Do Oregonians need a multinational corporation to identify “hate” for them in their own backyards? Where and who is this omniscient oracle? Let’s follow the “yellow brick road” of money and see what Oz looks like when we peel back his curtain of anonymity.

Google Corp. is owned by investors in the New York Stock Exchange. Does the demographic composition of investors in the New York Stock Exchange mirror the demographic composition of taxpayers in Oregon? Or does it more nearly resemble the demographic composition of Zion?

If you answered yes to the last question, you have identified one aspect of the Zionist Occupation Government. By doing so, you have become a neo-Nazi, an anti-Semite, a white supremacist.

If you don’t believe me, Google it. That’s what your government does.

Jimmy Marr

Springfield

Now, I guess there is always the possibility that one can misread the written word, reading the wrong tones, miss the proper shading, whathaveyou, but I read the second sentence of that next-to-last paragraph sarcastically. Did you? I mean, I think Jimmy wants me to agree with him that investors in the New York Stock Exchange are Jewish Zionists and that, through their control of the Google, they have fixed it so that a Google search of the perfectly innocent acronym ZOG** reveals that it is some kind of anti-Semitic slur, rather than the good wholesome - American - decrying of Zionists controlling Palestine and/or the world. Once I have agreed with Jimmy that this is the most likely explanation, I am now outraged, shocked, and appalled that someone would imply that this obvious conclusion would lead someone to label me, me!, an anti-Semite, neo-Nazi, and/or a white supremacist. How dare they!

I guess it's possible that Jimmy is just straight up trying to recruit anti-Semites into the white supremacist movement. But, while that makes more sense, it is much less likely.

Anyway, next up will be the expected round of letters bemoaning the anti-Semitism that flourishes in our society. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but somewhere along the way someone will advocate that anti-anti-Semitism should be a mandatory course of study in the schools which will just give the Springfield Jimmys more ammo. I also look forward to George Beres' straight up anti-Semitism, which will no doubt include a rant about the Register Guard being anti-Palestinian because they published the anti-anti-Semitism letters.

Will the R-G go so far as to publish the Holocaust denial letter that someone is undoubtedly writing right now? Oh, the fun we'll have. And, yes, it appears that Jimmy Marr was a member of the Pacifica Forum, so we got that in there too.

All of which is, unfortunately, more mileage for Jimmy's asinine beliefs than a stupid obscure license plate could ever have gotten him. Thanks again, Register-Guard, for being a fine citizen of the community.


*The original newspaper article claimed this was a gathering of neo-Nazis, so the claim is suspect of course, but let me assure you that in my attempt to find a link to this article I came across many "white pride" sites and I did not see a-one disputing the "neo-Nazi" assertion.

**The ZOG seems to be slipping, as a Google seach for the term brings up, in order, 1. The wikipedia page linked above. 2. ZogSports - The NYC sports league for young professionals. 3. A neo-Nazi site. 4. Dr. Zog - an original, high energy, Austin, Texas band that combines Lousiana Zydeco, New Orleans funk, Texas Blues and Southern jamband grooves. 5. The Zionist dictionary which (finally) reveals that ZOG is an anti-Semitic slur.

I Read the News Today

On a day when the Register Guard front page informs me that 25 workers at Emerald Valley Kitchen, including my sister who is raising three kids, are about to lose their jobs, and another Springfield plant is set to close with the loss of 100 jobs, and the interior pages tell me that local RV makers Monaco Coach and Country Coach are cutting back pay, and the UO's economic index is down 10% from it's baseline in 1997, it was quite a relief to turn to the editorial pages to find George Will assuring me that the economy was humming along just fine.

Apparently, sales on "Black Friday" were up more than three percent over last year! And Americans spent seven percent more than they did last year on that fateful day! On a one day snapshot, spending is up! up! up! Will warns us against reading too much into it, then proceeds to read too much into it (but with question marks for plausible deniability).

Is this evidence that the recent deleveraging of indebted households has breathed fresh life into personal consumption, which normally is 70 percent of economic activity? Is it evidence of underestimated strength in the economy in which more than 93 percent of those who want to work are employed(!), and more than 93 percent of mortgages are being paid on time? Is it evidence that Washington's jaw-dropping interventions with hundreds of billions of dollars are having their intended psychotherapeutic effects?

I would speculate that the slight increase in day-after-Thanksgiving sales is evidence of none of things. Off the top of my head, I would offer that increased sales might be due to 1. the shortened holiday calendar this year; 2. the need for people to take advantage of sales in a depressed economy; 3. the willingness of retailers to report higher than actual sales in a vain hope of spurring an temporary economic "recovery."

The point of Will's column, however, is not to argue that the economy is doing well, but to warn against interfering with the market forces that have delivered an economy with its low levels of unemployment and foreclosure. I mean if nothing is really wrong, there's no need to go fixing anything, right? Right? Black Friday sales?

It seems that Obama is promising job creation or, if all else fails, to stem the tide of job loss. This is all balderdash to Will. As Will demonstrates, absolutely without reference to population growth, there has been an average increase of 1.5 million new jobs in the US each year since the Eisenhower administration. Now, this statistic combined with the fact that the newly-elected President is talking merely about stemming job loss might be cause for concern. I mean, it seems like a lack of job growth when it is almost a given portends a gloomy economic forecast. Depressing really. Not to George "Sunshine When It's Raining" Will!

In recent years, in normal conditions, the economy has "lost" tens of millions of jobs through capitalism's "creative destruction" (Joseph Schumpeter's phrase). It also has created a few million more than that, which is why the destruction is creative.

I am sure George will (ha!) appreciate it if we skip right past that "in normal conditions," so we will. Ah,! "creative destruction" is there nothing you can't do? Each time an American loses a middle-class income paying job, an angel gets its wings two more jobs are created unloading goods at the local Wal-Mart. Progress! And this is really the heart of Will's column, the argument that free trade, despite all (no all!) indications to the contrary, has been a success for the American economy. Heaven forbid, we mess with free trade,

Should jobs "saved" by, say, protectionist policies that interfere with free trade be balanced against jobs lost when export markets are lost to retaliatory protectionism?

Will asks, rhetorically. Of course we should do nothing to damage our booming export sector. Why, if you combine American know-how with our inherent grit and determination, no one can out-manufacture the good ol' U.S. of A.! I mean, if we could open up that damn China market, why we could sell a billion toasters over night! Or cars! Think about a billion Indians all driving Hummers! Let's pray to Jeebus that nothing interferes with that plan. (Certainly not anything as short-sighted as bailing out the automakers long enough to enable them to retool their cars so that they might produce one an Indian would want to buy. That would be communism of the worst sort!) So we may lose millions upon millions of "jobs," but through the miracle of creative destruction, we'll also gain millions and millions of "jobs." Following Will's lead we will not even begin to wonder if "jobs" always equals "jobs."

You see, global free trade is all just a system of trade-offs, you lose your job making tasty organic salsa for $15 an hour with benefits, but you gain a job at Sam's Club selling salsa made in Asia! If no one can afford to buy RVs, that's okay!, you can get a job...well...um...there's always job training at the local community college! (And, by the way, look at all them trees out there just going to waste. I bet someone could make a pretty penny chopping all them trees down, then someone, somewhere could make them into a cheap table that you may be able to afford to buy one day.)

Of course, Will doesn't care about the loss of good jobs. Whereas our labor has a practical range of about 30 miles, his capital can be invested anywhere. When our jobs go to Mexico, India, or China, so does Will's money. (Thank God we have the US military to make sure that he'll get it back!) Plus, his job isn't going anywhere. You can't outsource this top-notch level of obfuscation, it takes decades of blindly spewing right-wing free market talking points to be this oblivious to what is happening all around you.

One Small Clause

Generally speaking, I have nothing against fair share members of my beloved union. You don't want to join? That's cool, 75.86% of GTFs do. It's no harm to me if you don't join up.

But...when you tell me that you don't want to join up because unions are "irrational and inefficient," immediately after signing up for your free health care, then you can go fuck yourself.

I want and "Eye and Eye" clause in the next contract. If someone actually advances the argument that unions are irrational and inefficient, they should immediately lose all union benefits and be forced to rely upon the kindness of their department for all benefits.

Good luck with that.

Unadulatered Wa[n]kery (You Know That's How I Like My Wa[n]kery)

Oh sweet Jebus. I heard this story on OPB yesterday on my way to Portland and I was tempted to abandon my job interview (more later) and drive to the studio and beat the crap out of whoever (whomever? fuck it) approved this story. If you are capable, listen to it; it is much worse listening to this chick babble about how awesome she is than to read it.

The movement to pay reparations to African Americans for slavery has not picked up much political momentum in this country.

Backers of the idea say slavery is America’s equivalent of the holocaust, worthy of payments to make up for generations of human horrors.

In cities across the country Wednesday, about 70 people sat on street corners asking people to pay reparations...right there, on the street. They collected money from white people and handed it on to black people.

The organizer of the event is Damali Ayo, a performance artist in Portland. Colin Fogarty caught up with her outside Nordstrom in downtown Portland.

The crosswalks that surround Pioneer Courthouse Square represent cross sections of Portland. Shoppers pass dollar bills to valets. Construction workers buy coffee.

Men in suits and women in dresses look down at the brick sidewalk as a MAX line edges through the streets.

Nearly everyone here is white. But sitting against the wall of Nordstrom is a fashionably dressed African American woman, with a cardboard sign.

Damali Ayo: "I hold a sign that says reparations accepted here. And I accept reparations from white people as they come by. And they put the money in my can. And then I pay that out to black people as they come by. Would you guys like to pay some reparations today?"

Man: No, I’m OK.

Damali Ayo: "Well you’re OK. But that’s not the point really?"

To artist Damali Ayo, this isn’t panhandling for survival, nor does she consider it a political protest. It’s a performance piece. Ayo has been doing this since 2003. Now, she’s organized dozens of people in cities from California to Connecticut, asking the same question to passers by.

Damali Ayo: "Hi would you like to pay some reparations today? People act like I can’t see them. I see you. If you put your head down, I can still see you."

Colin Fogarty: "Why should people pay reparations?"

Damali Ayo: "I think that it does something to say, yeah, we’re accountable for our history. We’re accountable. I was thinking, recently I was listening to an article about the holocaust and how people talk about the Nazis and how they were so evil and how they were animals and how could do they do that. I mean, look at our own history. We don’t talk about the white slavers that way. We give them the benefit of humanity. So I don’t think we’ve owned up to it. And when you put your money down...we know in this country, when you put your money down, you’re owning up to something. You’re it. And so that’s what this is for."

As we talk, two women from Nordstrom come out to kick Damali Ayo off the property.

Woman: "I represent Nordstrom here. I can’t have you sitting up against our wall or soliciting in front of our doors."

Ayo stays put for awhile. But before she goes, she convinces one white man to give her some change. Later, Ayo finds an African American woman and gives her the money.

Damali Ayo: [to the woman] "White people have been paying me reparations. And I can give you some money that I have. No. no. It’s not my money. It’s white peoples’ money."

Damali Ayo: "And that’s what I love the most about this piece is that anybody who walks by I don’t have to talk to them, I don’t have get money from them, they all have an experience with it. And they’ll go home and say, 'Frank, I saw the weirdest thing today.' And they’ll hopefully have a conversation, which is what I think art should do."

Damali Ayo has panhandled for reparations in more diverse cities than Portland, including New York and Boston. She says in Portland, though the reactions she gets are the most extreme...ranging from accepting to angry.

R-G to Eggheads: We Weren't Kidding the First Time

Two hot paragraphs were included in an editorial that appeared in today's Register Guard. It is an otherwise innocuous article about Oregon law governing diploma-mill degrees. Then, for no reason, here's Apu:

But should coaches be required to hold degrees at all? Of course not, because athletic "departments" are not really parts of universities, at least not at top-level schools. The UO athletic department is an ancillary business that is allowed by our cultural norms to use the university's name and trademarks to operate a large-scale entertainment business. The more private money it gets (thereby freeing other actual and potential funds for academic uses) the better.

That is why someone such as Pat Kilkenny is a good choice to lead such an enterprise. He's an experienced businessman with the ability to attract and manage money. The fact that Kilkenny has no degree is a who-cares. The problem he faces is that he is unaccustomed to operating within the slow, talkative process of academe, in which his actions will be publicly trashed by low-income people he has no choice but to work with. He is accustomed to doing things in private with people in his own economic stratum.

I don't have much more to say, other than "wow." What do you got?