Paul Krugman: Distract and Disenfranchise

Paul Krugman explains the motives behind the Bush administration abuses of power:

Distract and Disenfranchise, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: I have a theory about the Bush administration abuses of power that are now, finally, coming to light. Ultimately, I believe, they were driven by rising income inequality.

Let me explain.

In 1980, when Ronald Reagan won the White House, conservative ideas appealed to ... Americans ..., we were truly a middle-class nation. To white voters, at least, the vast inequalities and social injustices of the past, which ... gave liberalism its appeal, seemed like ancient history. It was easy, in that nation, to convince many voters that Big Government was their enemy, that they were being taxed to provide social programs for other people.

Since then, however, we have once again become a deeply unequal society. ... The gap between the rich and the middle class is as wide now as it was in the 1920s... And voters realize that society has changed. .... They ... know that wages aren’t going anywhere...

But today’s Republicans can’t respond in any meaningful way to rising inequality, because their activists won’t let them. You could see the dilemma just this past Friday and Saturday, when almost all the G.O.P. presidential hopefuls traveled to Palm Beach to make obeisance to the Club for Growth, a supply-side pressure group dedicated to tax cuts and privatization.

The Republican Party’s adherence to an outdated ideology leaves it with big problems. It can’t offer domestic policies that respond to the public’s real needs. So how can it win elections?

The answer, for a while, was a combination of distraction and disenfranchisement.

The terrorist attacks on 9/11 were themselves a massive, providential distraction... And they offered many opportunities for further distractions. Rather than debating Democrats on the issues, the G.O.P. could denounce them as soft on terror. And do you remember the terror alert, based on old and questionable information, ... right after the 2004 Democratic National Convention?

But distraction can only go so far. So the other tool was disenfranchisement: finding ways to keep poor people, who tend to vote for the party that might actually do something about inequality, out of the voting booth.

Remember that disenfranchisement in the form of the 2000 Florida “felon purge,” which struck many legitimate voters from the rolls, put Mr. Bush in the White House in the first place. And disenfranchisement seems to be what much of the politicization of the Justice Department was about.

Several of the fired U.S. attorneys were under pressure to pursue allegations of voter fraud — a phrase that has become almost synonymous with “voting while black.” Former staff members of the Justice Department’s civil rights division say that they were repeatedly overruled when they objected to Republican actions, ranging from Georgia’s voter ID law to Tom DeLay’s Texas redistricting, that they believed would effectively disenfranchise African-American voters.

The good news is that all the G.O.P.’s abuses of power weren’t enough to win the 2006 elections. And 2008 may be even harder for the Republicans, because the Democrats — who spent most of the Clinton years trying to reassure rich people and corporations that they weren’t really populists — seem to be realizing that times have changed.

A week before the Republican candidates trooped to Palm Beach to declare their allegiance to tax cuts, the Democrats met to declare their commitment to universal health care. And it’s hard to see what the G.O.P. can offer in response.

_________________________
Previous (3/26) column: Paul Krugman: Emerging Republican Minority
Next (4/6) column: Paul Krugman: Children Versus Insurers

Comments

[Tapen Sinha]

It is silly argument that all the poor folks voted for the Republicans for the reasons Krugman gives.

[reason]

TS...
ummm... could you be more precise? What are you talking about exactly (the fourth paragraph?)?

[maria]

Not all that convincing, in fact. The unfortunate thing about 9/11 is that it took place when a would-be fascist administration was in office. The Neocons simply used it to scare America into a quasi fascist frame of mind. I don't think they engineered it. Ditto the votes of the fundamentalist Christians. Did the GOP create them? No, but it certainly uses them and their frame of mind for its purposes. What would Gore have done? Would he have been able to stand up to the Neocons? I have some doubts. Could he have persuaded the fundamentalists to vote Democratic because of pocket book issues? Not at all certain. This administration has simply taken advantage of circumstances to give US politics a fascist twist. The circumstances that have given it that opportunity were not created by it.

[anne]

Paul Krugman:

"But today’s Republicans can’t respond in any meaningful way to rising inequality, because their activists won’t let them. You could see the dilemma just this past Friday and Saturday, when almost all the G.O.P. presidential hopefuls traveled to Palm Beach to make obeisance to the Club for Growth, a supply-side pressure group dedicated to tax cuts and privatization."

Precisely, and essentially.

[prostratedragon]

On the off chance that I understood someone correctly, and bearing in mind that I might not have, in which case my apologies,

Krugman:
"providential distraction"

i.e. a distraction "occurring at a favorable time; opportune" or perhaps "involving divine foresight or intervention."

(Concise OED)

[maria]

Inequality has been on the rise in America since 1968. It has risen more during GOP administrations, but it has NOT been reversed during Democratic administrations. As I have said before only outright "socialist" legislation of income redistribution would reverse the trend, and I don't really think either party is ready for that. Maybe sometime in the future....?

[john c. halasz]

Oh, no, he di'n't! Paul Krugman in league with the Anti-Christ! Boy, oh boy, is he gonna catch hell for that one!

[evagrius]

Inequality's been on the rise since 1968?

1968- Last year of Johnson.
1968-1976 Nixon, Ford Republicans
1976-1980 Carter Democrat
1980-1992 Reagan, Bush I
1992-2000 Clinton
2000- Bush II

Republicans have been in charge of the presidency quite a bit in comparison to Democrats.

They've had the bully pulpit longer and have not made much about inequality.

Carter was ridiculed for discussing futuristic programs such as energy conservation.
Any attempts at discussing inequality would have been equally ridiculed.

With Clinton, the inequality gap was reduced somewhat but was derailed with the dot com bust.

None of the Republicans ever discussed inequality.

I think Krugman has it right.

[save_the_rustbelt]

The GOP isn't organized enough have a conspiracy.

The Dems are likely to follow the Rubin wing, i.e., whore themselves to Wall Street again.

Krugman won't discuss the impacts of his pet trade policies on income inequality, too inconvenient.

Time to stock up on food and ammo?

[Callahan]

Krugman has it as close to correct as bee's are to honey. Well maybe not that close, but pretty darned close.

[Lafayette]

PK: “… we have once again become a deeply unequal society. ... The gap between the rich and the middle class is as wide now as it was in the 1920s...

My reading of Picketty-Saez is that income inequality has ALWAYS been very unequal, simply fluctuating moderately since the early 1900s where their data begin.

“And voters realize that society has changed. .... “

Yes, quite. THAT is what has changed since Reagan. His relaxing of the marginal tax rates had a great deal to do with the income inequality we observe today.

People are FINALLY noticing and that has not as much to do with the poor (certainly not the rich) as the middle-class.

[ken melvin]

There's reality, and there's deniality. Deniality is much sweeter the tooth for many Americans. When it became evident to some (of us) the pending changes, derision we got; poor Jimmy the most. Tell them what they want to hear ronnie did and ever since in order to win and ever since anything but reality please. True, it began in 68 or 70 whatever; the change, and the denial. Instead new policies for the new economics, we heard tales of the good old days and got policies designed to take us back to a time that never was.

[Duder]

Repos also apply Negative Enfrahchisement. For example, in South Carolina, Repos appeal to the majority by being the non-[bad word that begins with 'n']-word party. Or, if you favor the Dems, you're a fag, but if you favor the Repos, you can't be a fag (or sypathetic to fags--pretty much the same thing). See the movie Idiocracy for more on this. Pretty accurate in this regard.

[anne]

Something happened last week that puzzles. How was Circuit City able to fire 3,400 of the most experienced workers and begin hiring inexperienced workers in their place? Of course I understand there is no union at Circuit City, but is there no protection for such a procedure? I must find out today.

[anne]

Also, why are we failing to understand what a lack of unions means for American workers? The lunatics at George Mason continually rail against unions when unions are have been bashed and slashed these 25 years. But, what has been the result of the decline of union strength? Short of being protected against being beaten with a stick, does a worker at Circuit City have any protection?

[save_the_rustbelt]

Anne:

Circuit City can fire anyone they want to as long as there is no pattern of age/race/gender discrimination.

I'm guessing CC is circling the drain, too many stores in that category, and out course Wal-Mart. Watch for CC to go Chapter 11.

[anne]

Yes; and thank you, but the point is whether there are to be any worker protections beyond those against discrimination, and why the issue is so little pushed. After all, we still do not even have a minimum wage increase much to the delight of some. The minimum wage increase is being denied to force a tax reduction from Congress, yet held up the bill is.

[anne]

Not that I would otherwise care, but he writes for the New York Times, and last week Tyler Cowen was telling us how dangerous any strengthening of unions would be when unions have been continually pressed and limited these 25 and more years.

[ken melvin]

Fire your best and success can't be far behind.

[anne]

Ken Melvin:

"Fire your best and success can't be far behind."

Especially clever.

[robertdfeinman]

My two current hobby horses are related to this topic.

1. The rise in the number of people who will follow their leaders off a cliff. This includes political and religious leaders (and sometimes they are one and the same). The mindset of this type of follower personality has been documented in a recent free and online book by psychologist Robert Altemeyer. If you want to understand why people can consistently ignore reality have a look at his research results:

The Authoritarians

2. The influence of the super rich in setting the public agenda. The shift to a libertarian outlook didn't just "happen" it is the result of a thirty year program by some of the wealthiest families in the US to promote policies which benefit them directly. Places like Heritage, Hoover and Cato get the bulk of their funding from this group. The web site sourcewatch.org tracks this.

For example the repeal of the estate tax has been spearhead by just 18 super wealthy families. The Waltons alone stand to save $40 billion if the tax is eliminated.

The progressives a) didn't realize the stealth power of the wealthy to buy pundits and politicians and b) don't have these types of funds available to fight back effectively.

People don't believe that we are living in a plutocracy, they think that because they get to vote for Tweedledum instead of Tweedledee they have a choice. Today's news is all about which candidate has raised the most money, not which one has the most widespread support or has the best policy proposals.

We live in a society where dollars vote, not people.

[Callahan]

To robertdfeinman: this weekend I heard someone say maybe we should vote for those we dislike the most, then those with the most votes would loose.

[paine]

rusty
"The Dems are likely to follow the Rubin wing,
i.e., whore themselves to Wall Street again"

prolly
but watch
rubin like st hill will be ritually
bounced even if gently
off the quater deck

the helots are restive now rusty

neat new phoney masks are necessary

obama
the magic masked man ???

his present aids are all rubinians
but that can be ....reconfigured

watch rubinites howl against rubinites

in politics its the singer not the song

so long as the singer has a tail pipe connected to wall street
his mouth can say almost anything

and besides corporate america has a human face
it looks like ted halstead

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/02/world/middleeast/02iraq.html

4 G.I.’s Among Dead in Iraq; McCain Cites Progress

[What more to add....]

[anne]

Again what matters is the insane tragic astounding cost of Iraq, which unless we deal with makes looking to social benefit programs a mockery. We are directly spending $14 billion a month on Iraq, and billions more indirectly such as for the more than 100,000 soldiers returned from Iraq and Afghanistan who were classed as variously disabled by last October.

We are in a $2 trillion war and occupation, and unless a candidate for president will tell us we are leaving and fast we will be talking nonsesnse about social programs.

[anne]

Iraq is directly costing us $14 billion a month, which is the entire additional amount Congress has given to social benefit programs for fiscal 2007. So, a month of destructiveness and self-destructiveness in Iraq or a year of looking to the true needs of Americans?

As for candidates, Republicans are for staying in Iraq forever as is Hillary Clinton. That leaves, to be a realist, John Edwards or Barack Obama.

[calmo]

I think robert is onto something here that seats the PK article in the appropriate (I am no authority and welcome redirection about how this is not appropriate) setting.
As illustrated by Eva, it's disconcerting that the Repubs can be in power so predominantly while this shift in wealth/income is occurring.
It is saying something about our democracy and the quality of that participation (not quantity for a change) that people can vote against their own interests. (laf masks the reality that disparity has jumped an order of magnitude in the last decade by describing this as part of an historical fluctuating wealth distribution pattern.)
I still haven't read the linked article robert, but I shall.

[Gary Denton]

Krugman could have referenced this Pew Study.

http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=312

He also could have really used it in his previous column where his evidence given of a drift toward the Left among the electorate was lacking. It occured since 1994 according to the Pew study.

"an increasing number of Americans subscribe to the sentiment “today it’s really true that the rich just get richer while the poor get poorer.” Currently, 73% concur with that sentiment, up from 65% five years ago. Growing concerns about income inequality are most apparent among affluent Americans; large percentages of lower-income people have long held this opinion."

http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/312.pdf

NPR had a good series on rising income inequality.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7180618

[Mark Thoma]

I cut this part:And voters realize that society has changed. ... They may not read labor statistics, but they know that wages aren’t going anywhere: according to the Pew Research Center, 59 percent of workers believe that it’s harder to earn a decent living today than it was 20 or 30 years ago.

[anne]

Thank you, Gary:

http://people-press.org/reports/print.php3?PageID=1127

March 22, 1007

Trends in Political Values and Core Attitudes: 1987-2007: Political Landscape More Favorable To Democrats

Summary of Findings

Increased public support for the social safety net, signs of growing public concern about income inequality, and a diminished appetite for assertive national security policies have improved the political landscape for the Democrats as the 2008 presidential campaign gets underway.

At the same time, many of the key trends that nurtured the Republican resurgence in the mid-1990s have moderated, according to Pew's longitudinal measures of the public's basic political, social and economic values. The proportion of Americans who support traditional social values has edged downward since 1994, while the proportion of Americans expressing strong personal religious commitment also has declined modestly.

Even more striking than the changes in some core political and social values is the dramatic shift in party identification that has occurred during the past five years....

[anne]

Historian Sean Wilentz at Princeton has been projecting a change from Republicanism for several years, what is puzzling though to a number of us is why the Democratic leadership has been so slow in perceiving this. The sense I have is that Democrats are listening to advisers who have no understanding of polling changes such as these.

[paine]

the polls have spoken
the helots are restless

now its the pols turn....

will it be enough for the same old bottles to
be reshaped

or will "we" insist
"they" produce a new elixir ???

does obama-ism potentialy contain a new tonic ???

stranger things have happened.....

[ken melvin]

RDF,

Speak it, write it, shout about it. This needs to be out front. To the rubinites, it doesn't matter aas long as they get to be in charge. They may know more about how this stuff works, if so - we must make them work for us.

[Bob Dobbs]

There may or may not have been a conspiracy planned and built from the ground up, but super-wealthy conservatives like Richard Mellon Scaife and others -- and let's not forget Rupert Murdoch -- helped build a propaganda and indoctrination and training infrastructure which came together with the Republican Party and, eventually, the presidency, to speak largely as a single, well-coordinated voice that has great power to define and control the public discussion of policy and priorities. And eventually, the enforcement of election and voting rights laws, and on and on. Once such movements build momentum, they rarely have the ability or desire to restrain themselves.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/magazine/01axelrod.t.html?ex=1333080000&en=d32e32dea39ef546&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

April 1, 2007

Obama's Narrator
By BEN WALLACE-WELLS

When Barack Obama decided in January that he would run for president in 2008 and quietly began calling up his staff members and close supporters to tell them so, the choice had many effects, but one of the most immediate and parochial was that it sent Obama's chief political and media adviser, a Chicago consultant named David Axelrod, into his editing studio. For four years Axelrod has had camera crews tracking virtually everything Obama has done in public — chatting up World War II vets in southern Illinois, visiting his father's ancestral village in western Kenya — and there were days when the camera crews have outnumbered the civilians....

[anne]

Bob Dobbs:

"Once such movements build momentum, they rarely have the ability or desire to restrain themselves."

What an interesting comment; please continue the thought.

[anne]

Notice in reading the Pew Research report that there are pronounced losses in support for Republicans, but not necessarily a gain for Democrats. There lies a need for Democrats to look to their heritage and work carefully on defining themselves in terms of heritage. That means clear stances, from Barack Obama on health care and John Edwards on Iraq and so on. I was startled that among the leading candidates only Edwards defined a health care plan in the most recent candidate forum. Hillary Clinton would not do so after all these supposed years of experience.

[paine]

"build a propaganda and indoctrination and training infrastructure which came together with the Republican Party and, eventually, the presidency, to speak largely as a single, well-coordinated voice that has great power to define and control the public discussion of policy and priorities"

but that's not likely to work
when the stink is directly in the nostrils
rather then just reported on the tv

no more ...much more will be needed now

krugs notion of a great distraction
works only till
the destraction itself f's up
then as now

booom

[Bob Dobbs]

"Once such movements build momentum, they rarely have the ability or desire to restrain themselves."

What an interesting comment; please continue the thought.

Nothing profound here... but a political movement that takes control of a governmental structure that its ideology casts as "the enemy" or "in the way," has no choice but to subvert that structure into nothing but an arm of the party.. so that it is no longer "in the way."
Eventually you end up with a one-party state and rule by and for a well-connected minority of the population -- which is apparently what was intended.

Do none dare call it subversion?

[ig]

"Historian Sean Wilentz at Princeton has been projecting a change from Republicanism for several years, what is puzzling though to a number of us is why the Democratic leadership has been so slow in perceiving this. The sense I have is that Democrats are listening to advisers who have no understanding of polling changes such as these."

they are busy raising 26 million. and their advisors are telling them to raise money. issues are an afterthought.

[Holly W.]

Never fear; according the LA Times, those of us displaced from other jobs, or earning crap salaries because we're competing with Third World workers, can share in the wealth of the richest Americans by becoming servants, which are apparently in short supply, at least in Southern California. Try outsourcing that ...!

[anne]

Holly, please set down the reference article. These are helpful to save.

Bob, thank you; the thought is still interesting and worth developing at least for yourself with care.

"Nothing profound here... but a political movement that takes control of a governmental structure that its ideology casts as 'the enemy' or 'in the way,' has no choice but to subvert that structure into nothing but an arm of the party..."

[ken melvin]

First heard the CATO radio commercials in the early 70s.

[anne]

There is a decision repeatedly being made by Democratic advisers, that policy specificity is to be avoided. John Edwards has in several instances decided to be entirely specific and with encouragement will obviously go further. Hillary Clinton was put in a situation on Iraq by open questions and in an interview for the New York Times where specificity could not be avoided, other than that she has spoken only vaguely. Barack Obama, who has only been a candidate for 10 weeks, has spoken of political unifying but avoided any specificity.

[Alex]

Paul Krugman is part right on this. Did the Republicans use 9-11 and the "War of Terror" in order bolster their power, and give quick government cash to their cronies? Absolutely. However, I do not think that the GOP took 9-11 and ran with it under the concious idea of obfuscating discussions about economic policy and inequality. I think that was more of a byproduct of it. If Bush hadn't gone into Iraq, and the GOP did not come off looking like corporate whores, then economic inequality would be harder to point to.

As to inequality in the long run, the issue isn't since 1968. The issue is that from 1947 - 1973, all American prospered, whereas before and after, they did not. Why? Its the government, stupid. The government has the power to make or break how our society operates. If you don't like the economic pie division, take power.

[James Killus]

"These natural, and apparently adequate means all failing, what will convince them? This, and this only: cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. And this must be done thoroughly - done in acts as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated - we must place ourselves avowedly with them. Senator Douglas' new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our Free State constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to believe that all their troubles proceed from us." --Abraham Lincoln, Cooper Union Speech

When men engage in such a fashion as to place themselves above their fellow men, arrogating to themselves powers and privileges that the law, history, tradition, and even common decency suggest is wrong, it is never enough that they merely get away with it. They must enlist the aid of everyone involved or even observant; the disadvantaged and the downtrodden must tug the forelock, say "Yes sir" or even better, "Yes Sire," never grumble, never criticize, in short, everyone must join in helping to convince the aristocrats that their privileges are in fact their rights, their own just due. Because they themselves always walk in fear, knowing that without their advantages and privileges, they are, in fact, less able to make their way in the world than those they sneer at.

Therefore they always overreach, testing their "special virtues" and Providence itself, in order to reassure themselves that what is fiction is actually fact.

The think tanks, the elite universities and prep schools before them, and the moral philosophy of money and the market were not, first and foremost, about convincing the public. Their first functions were to convince the wealthy that they deserved their good fortune. The political hedgemony was an almost accidental benefit, a side effect, if you will, of what was originally a very expensive treatment for imposter's syndrome.

[maria]

Eva: I invite you to look at the Census Bureau tables on inequality and decide for yourself. I would do that before I made assertions that are wrong:

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/f04.html

There are ebbs and flows but the thrust is constantly upward. In fact one of the ebbs was during Nixon's last two years.

[maria]

Eva says:
With Clinton, the inequality gap was reduced somewhat but was derailed with the dot com bust.
Here are the Clinton figures:

1993 .429
1994 .426
1995 .421
1996 .425
1997 .429
1998 .430
1999 .429
2000 .433

I don't see any consistent abatement there. By 1997, before the dotcom bust, it was back where it started in 1993, and then went up to .433. In any case, if you are going to credit Clinton with "reducing" inequality (which he did not do) you also need to credit him with the dotcom bust; both came from policies set in place during his administration. And you have to recall that in 1992, last year of Bush I it was at .404, lower than any of the Clinton years.

[maria]

If Clinton reduced inequality so did Bush I.
Here are the Bush I figures:

1989 .401
1990 .396
1991 .397
1992 .404

Bush I began with a Gini of .401 and ended with one of .404
Clinton began with one of .429 and ended with one of .433.

Big difference!

[maria]

Lafayette: there is a big difference in inequality between a Gini of .348 and one of .440. In short, inequality has increased greatly since 1968. There was a very great drop in inequality during the 1930s, due to the depression. I think it is quite wrong to say that it has "always been very unequal". That is simply not true. I don't think you can find any society with NO inequality. The lowest figures for inequality were in the Communist states of Eastern Europe and they still have relatively low inequality now, compared to the USA. Look at the CIA tables.

[maria]

robertdfeinman: You are correct about the malevolent influence of the right wing Neocon think tanks. But here Tony Judt's point comes into play: why has leftist thought in the USA faded away so markedly? It has faded away because so many of the Jewish intellectuals who previously were the leaders have gone over to Neoconism. There really can be no doubt about it.

[maria]

Edwards and Obama are very weak candidates. If either was to win it would be due to a shift in party voting, not because of the individual. Obama is perceived as black and probably impossible to nominate or elect in contemporary USA. Edwards is not a strong candidate. Hillary has the public exposure, but sadly enough is a waffler on Iraq. None of the Democrats will do anything in the Middle East that the AIPAC opposes. So don't expect much.

[Holly W.]

Anne, try this: www.latimes.com/news/local/la-fi-servants1apr01,0,1337230.story

The story is titled, "If The Butler Does It, You'll Pay."

[anne]

Thank you, Holly.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-fi-servants1apr01,0,133673,print.story

April 1, 2007

If the Butler Does it, You'll Pay: The rich need more servants. How does $80K a year sound?
By David Streitfeld - Los Angeles Times

The rich might be getting richer, but their lives are hardly trouble-free. In Southern California, there aren't enough servants to go around.

Wealthy families need more chefs to prepare their meals, more maids and butlers to serve them, more housekeepers to keep their mansions tidy and more nannies and night nurses to tend their offspring.

All this demand is putting Peggy Gardiner in a pretty position. She's a professionally trained cook, good with kids, an expert on laundry. She can do light bookkeeping and boss others around. In her last full-time gig, she oversaw a staff of six on a $15-million estate near San Diego....

[realpc]

Anne,

I think you expect too much from labor unions, given their history. Union leaders have often done as much as employers to rip off the workers -- they collect dues from the workers and bribes from the employers. So I don't understand why progressives get so starry-eyed thinking about unions.

It would be nice if employers treated their workers better, in general, but I don't think unions are the best long-term solution. Maybe they are useful as temporary measures on occasion. But there are other motivations to treat workers better -- for example, if the workers are skilled and hard to replace. Retail stores obviously do not value skill and experience -- you almost never see older experienced salespeople anymore. Maybe stores are not convinced that it matters. But if they saw data proving that it does matter, I guess they would be willing to pay more for experience.

Workers should not expect to be valued and respected and protected if they are not performing a useful service of some kind. If an employer is willing to throw a worker away, it's because the worker doesn't have value to the employer. So the answer is for workers to increase their value by increasing their skills and/or moving into areas where there is a worker shortage, rather than an over-supply.

Doesn't that make more sense than antagonistic unions which are prone to corruption?

[eyesonthestreet]

Do middle class Americans stop to think about the Bush Admin. and the inequality in income? I don't really think so. What the Middle Class has realized is that we were scared out our wits about Mushroom Clouds and then saw incompetence. we remember the drop and cover drills form gradeschool, and now we are told it could happen, code orange.

When you go to work everyday and do your best you expect the same from your leaders, it is that simple. It is the incompetence, and the lying that went along with it, that has the middle class looking for a better leader for tomorrow, IMHO.

[eyesonthestreet]

The middle class voters have realized that the Bush Administration has tarnished our tradmark, our trademark being "The United States of America," and what that stands for.

This has hurt my investments in this country. I own a home that is less desirable to the global economy because of the Bush Administrations tarnishing of our image as a welcoming and safe place to live.

My skills as a worker and a problem solver is also less valuable now. The Bush Administration are not problem solvers, they start trouble, needlessly. And that tarnishes us, the United States of America.

Bush as a man was a failure his whole life, he was a tarnished man. He was lifted up and dusted off and sold as new. You can't do that as easily with a nation.

You can't wipe the slate clean, memories linger. Will the next leader be able to restore our trademark? It remains to be seen.

[evagrius]

maria ;

I just looked at the graph, not the numbers and besides, who cares? The Gini's increasing with a few dips now and then and that's all that counts.

As for your remarks on leftist thoughts, I don't think it has to do with Jewish intellectuals becoming neocons.

That's a rather bizarre notion.

It has to do with what Bob Dobbs argues- a well planned, well thought out taking over the mainstream media coordinated with retrograde religous fundamentalism, focusing on sexual and other moral behavior rather than economic behavior.

[evagrius]

"Workers should not expect to be valued and respected and protected if they are not performing a useful service of some kind. If an employer is willing to throw a worker away, it's because the worker doesn't have value to the employer. So the answer is for workers to increase their value by increasing their skills and/or moving into areas where there is a worker shortage, rather than an over-supply."

Replace "worker" with "slave" and "employer" with "master";

Slaves should not expect to be valued and respected and protected if they are not performing a useful service of some kind. If a master is willing to throw a slave away, it's because the slave doesn't have value to the master. So the answer is for slaves to increase their value by increasing their skills and/or moving into areas where there is a slave shortage, rather than an over-supply.

[Noni Mausa]

maria said: "Not all that convincing, in fact. The unfortunate thing about 9/11 is that it took place when a would-be fascist administration was in office....

I have long thought it was the other way around -- that Osama waited till a Bushlike gov't was in power before pulling the pin.

Given the events since 9/11, I have no reason to reconsider this supposition.

Noni

[cm]

realpc: Unions, by their very purpose and definition, are meant to be aggregators of power, and as such are prone to corruption, as any entity in such a role (compare governments, corporate leadership, etc. -- waiting to see you rail against those).

The question is, are we better off with unions or without? What many non-unionized workers or otherwise professionals (preferring not consider themselves to be workers) are not realizing is that it is the fruits of past union struggles having put pay structures in place or solidified them that they are now benefitting from, without a union representing them. That won't be so forever -- once Circuit City has laid off all "overpaid" salespeople, and other employers eroded all ex-union pay, that will be the end of goof professional pay too. Everything is relative in that regard. Same thing with working conditions.

[cm]

That should have been "good" not "goof". The spellchecker didn't flag it, and why should it. (Does this relate to "IT productivity"?)

[cm]

Holly, others: The correct term is not "servant" but "domestic help", I'mve been hearing.

[cm]

Not my best day spotting typos, it appears.

[gordon]

Anne says: "...unions are have been bashed and slashed these 25 years." Wikipedia has some interesting articles on the Haymarket Strike and the Pullman Strike in the late nineteenth century, also on the career of J.P.Altgeld (Progressive Gov. of Illinois) which indicate to me (a foreigner) that for most of its history the US union movement and oppressive employers have needed each other in much the same way as US Neocons and Osama et.al. need each other. Except for the relatively brief period post-Depression and post-WWII, unions and employers in the US have been locked into the same destructive and violent cycle of oppression and revolt currently known as the "War on Terror". See also the Wikipedia article on Red Scare (the first one, 1917-1920).

So the issue seems to be not so much "Unions or not?" but how to ensure that unions can function "respectably" and effectively as part of US society, ie. neither in the roles of violent revolutionaries nor Company pussycats.

[Anarcho]

"The influence of the super rich in setting the public agenda. The shift to a libertarian outlook didn't just 'happen' it is the result of a thirty year program by some of the wealthiest families in the US to promote policies which benefit them directly."

Very true. But there is nothing "libertarian" about empowering private tyrannies and hierarchies. That should be obvious, but sadly not. How "libertarian" is a corporation? It is a centralised, top-down organisation in which a few dictators tell the others what to do. As Noam Chomsky stresses, it is a fascist organisation.

The great con of the last 30-40 years has been the appropriation of the word "libertarian" by the right (particularly in the USA, less so in the UK and not at all in Europe). Before the 1970s, libertarian meant "libertarian socialist" and the ideas of people like Emma Goldman, the Haymarket Martyrs and other anarchists. It shows how the power of money can work, turning the meaning of a word into the direct opposition of what it previously meant.

The original libertarian tradition supports, for example, unions as a means to increase freedom of workers in the workplace and in society in the short term. In the long term, they aim to end capitalist tyranny by means of co-operative production. So, please, remember that "Freedom without Socialism is privilege and injustice and Socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality." (Bakunin)

For more information, visit "An Anarchist FAQ" (www.anarchistfaq.org).

[realpc]

"What many non-unionized workers or otherwise professionals (preferring not consider themselves to be workers) are not realizing is that it is the fruits of past union struggles having put pay structures in place or solidified them that they are now benefitting from, without a union representing them."

That is only an assumption. I doubt they have labor unions in China or India, but skilled professional workers are still valued.

In early stages of industrialization unskilled factory workers have been treated badly. Maybe that's because there were crowds of farmers anxious to escape poverty by working in factories.

We really don't know if the improvements resulted from unions. It might have been the increasing education of each new generation of worker.

As I said, unions might be needed in some cases, but it's wrong to assume they are the best or only answer. In addition to corruption, we all know that unions discourage competition among workers. We know the stereotype of union workers not doing their best. Why should they, if they owe their jobs to the union rather than the employer?

Unions can also damage industries, when low-skill workers have to be paid professional salaries and benefits.

And maybe unions are one reason for the sorry state of public education in the US.

[anne]

Yes; we must be very afraid, and I for one am more than very afraid of dread low-skill workers being paid professional salaries and benefits which was precisely the reason for firing 3,400 professionally salaried and benefitted workers at Circuit City. Are we properly afraid?

[anne]

Be afraid, be very afraid....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/21/us/21janitor.html?ex=1321765200&en=f139e42d0ca84d0a&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

November 21, 2006

Cleaning Companies in Accord With Striking Houston Janitors
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

Houston's major cleaning companies and the union representing 5,300 janitors there announced a tentative contract yesterday that ends a monthlong strike, raises the workers' hourly wages by nearly 50 percent over two years and provides them health coverage.

Under the three-year deal, the first for the janitors since they unionized last year, their pay, which now averages $5.25 an hour, will increase to $6.25 on Jan. 1, 2007; to $7.25 on Jan. 1, 2008; and to $7.75 on Jan. 1, 2009.

Further, the employers agreed to increase a janitor's typical shift to six hours a day, from four. Many of the janitors had said they were being given too few hours of work to support their families.

As a result of the rise in both hourly pay and the hours in the workweek, the employees expect to see their paychecks double over the next couple of years.

"It's a moment of great victory," said Mercedes Herrera, a janitor for five years who earns $5.15 an hour. "We all came together, and the union gave us strength. Many of us have never received a raise. I've earned the same ever since I started, so the raise is great." ...

[anne]

Yes; no question, we must be afraid of unions that can manage to gain, shudder, even janitors better than $5.25 and hour and no benefits. Beware, unions are coming now to ruin American education by which teachers may soon be salaried and benefitted as, say, New York Yankees.

[paine]

realpc

you need a visit from bill haywood

[anne]

Blame the teachers union:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/education/01girls.html?ex=1333080000&en=f6761bf46a0a1fb6&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

April 1, 2007

For Girls, It's Be Yourself, and Be Perfect, Too
By SARA RIMER

NEWTON, Mass. — To anyone who knows 17-year-old Esther Mobley, one of the best students at one of the best public high schools in the country, it is absurd to think she doesn't measure up. But Esther herself is quick to set the record straight.

"First of all, I'm a terrible athlete," she said over lunch one day.

"I run, I do, but not very quickly, and always exhaustedly," she continued. "This is one of the things I'm most insecure about. You meet someone, especially on a college tour, adults ask you what you do. They say, 'What sports do you play?' I don't play any sports. It's awkward."

Esther, a willowy, effervescent senior, turned to her friend Colby Kennedy. Colby, 17, is also a great student, a classical pianist, fluent in Spanish, and a three-season varsity runner and track captain. Did Colby worry, Esther asked, that she fell short in some way?

"Or," said Esther, and now her tone was a touch sarcastic, "do you just have it all already?"

They both burst out laughing.

Esther and Colby are two of the amazing girls at Newton North High School here in this affluent suburb just outside Boston. "Amazing girls" translation: Girls by the dozen who are high achieving, ambitious and confident (if not immune to the usual adolescent insecurities and meltdowns.) Girls who do everything: Varsity sports. Student government. Theater. Community service. Girls who have grown up learning they can do anything a boy can do, which is anything they want to do.

But being an amazing girl often doesn't feel like enough these days when you're competing with all the other amazing girls around the country who are applying to the same elite colleges that you have been encouraged to aspire to practically all your life.

An athlete, after all, is one of the few things Esther isn't. A few of the things she is: a standout in Advanced Placement Latin and honors philosophy/literature who can expound on the beauty of the subjunctive tense in Catullus and on Kierkegaard's existential choices. A writer whose junior thesis for Advanced Placement history won Newton North's top prize. An actress. President of her church youth group.

To spend several months in a pressure cooker like Newton North is to see what a girl can be — what any young person can be — when encouraged by committed teachers and by engaged parents who can give them wide-ranging opportunities.

It is also to see these girls struggle to navigate the conflicting messages they have been absorbing, if not from their parents then from the culture, since elementary school. The first message: Bring home A's. Do everything. Get into a top college — which doesn't have to be in the Ivy League, or one of the other elites like Williams, Tufts or Bowdoin, but should be a "name" school.

The second message: Be yourself. Have fun. Don't work too hard.

And, for all their accomplishments and ambitions, the amazing girls, as their teachers and classmates call them, are not immune to the third message: While it is now cool to be smart, it is not enough to be smart.

You still have to be pretty, thin and, as one of Esther's classmates, Kat Jiang, a go-to stage manager for student theater who has a perfect 2400 score on her SATs, wrote in an e-mail message, "It's out of style to admit it, but it is more important to be hot than smart."

"Effortlessly hot," Kat added....

[tom]

Fascinating look into the left wind mind.

There's inequality in wealth.
ERGO, the GOVERNMENT MUST 'FIX' THAT.

Speaking of 'outdated' ideologies , that one officially went out of date when the Berlin wall came down,

[dale]

"left wind mind"
That typo inadvertantly illuminates the spiritual aspect of left wing thought- the perception or intuition of the fundamental unity of all people. The inherent dignity and worth of each and every person.

Tom, its that spiritual intuition that grounds the left's concern with inequality. That concern will be with us as long as there are decent human beings with the courage to see beyond the existing state of affairs.

[tom]

Dale , please, take off your halo for a minute. It's not any form of courage to ask the Government to tax millionaires more.

The PROVEN failure of the left wing ideology is that it feeds from 'spiritual intution, as opposed to logic.

It may be 'spritually intuitive' to think the income disparity problem in this country can somehow be solved by income redistribution, but it just plain doesn't work.

[tom]

by the way. Since Krugman mentions the [ghastly] idea of universal health care, does anybody think Paul Krugman would ever wait in line at a Government health clinic???
Me neither.

[Callahan]

I believe Nader has it right. Big business runs this country of theirs (I mean ours), I mean, well damn it you know what I mean.

Republicans are real good at talking points, and at fatening all of the right (in their mind) pockets.

Then we have the Democrats. They are not blameless either.

Takes two pretty good incomes to get by today, this will only worsen as time goes by.

[tom]

so the government should do ......

[Don]

I'm not quite so sold that the Democratic party candidates are aware that times have changed.

[maria]

Cindy Sheehan tells the Democrats to get cracking on ending this insane war:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070406/ts_alt_afp/
usiraqpoliticssheehan

Bully for her.

[real person from the real world]

Unions are irrelevant now. I know some guys in IT who list big salaries on their desired salary in Career Builder, but are they actually getting it? no. But they want it, and they want play with the powerful to get it. Unions might interfer, like you were admitting you were one of the peons of the lower class. Take CIOs for example, they come and go every 4 years in some companies, and if that next golden gig doesn't come along they just start up a consultancy, and wait for the projects to come to them.

As for the "herd mentality" some of the bloggers refer to.... well, my father's generation wasn't that well educated, and when you are not educated you have more respect for authority and order. Those are the same people who go to the conservative churches, and they are incredibly over conservative, except maybe Jews, and that is because they respect education and learn to think for themselves. I just got an email from some religiously inclined friends, about how RFIDs are the "Mark of the Beast" as in the end of the world.

It's funny. At one time, religion promoted education, now it seems to ignore it.