Working Life

It’s pretty simple: you can’t advance a progressive agenda, or even one you call “liberal”, that claims to want to combat inequality AND go all out to ram through the Trans Pacific Partnership using the odious “Fast track” authority. Here are the contradictions.

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In the midst of the Greek chorus demanding that everyone salute in awe and reverence to the tax proposals set to be unveiled in stage-managed “don’t actually look behind the curtain” fashion, it’s worth a pause to consider what these ideas mean in the big picture of class warfare and the crumbling of the country: meek stuff, clearly driven by the very Democratic/liberal pollsters who got the country into the mess in the first place by being cowards, a bit discriminatory and just long-term…bleh…

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That would be the Afghanistan War. Putting aside the death and destruction from this immoral folly, if you want to know where the money for bridges went, or the money we could use to shore up pensions might have gone, or the money we could use for EXPANDING Social Security…it’s in the cities, mountains and […]

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I detect a president who thinks he’s found a very potent political argument. Having gone soft on the bankers, letting all the big fish skate after wrecking the economy, the president has figured out that people just won’t stand for a tax system that leaves regular people holding the tab while CEOs figure out how to screw the public, day after day. And, so, he’s now personally calling for an end to so-called tax “inversions”

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The president just keeps spending our money, his time and a chunk of political capital on the putrid Trans Pacific Partnership, one of the newest corporate-backed trade deal–“newest” because every trade deal since NAFTA has been all about protecting corporate interests. Nothing seems to move this president to understand that this is a horrendous deal. And, while a lot of focus has been paid to the TPP, another very bad deal is in the works between the U.S. and Europe–and it will potentially make millions of people sick. Or kill them.

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I wonder what the genius in the White House, who organized the president’s celebration of Wal-Mart this past week, will say now. Or was it the president who thought, “gee, Wal-Mart, now there’s a model to hold up”. Just to aid anyone who had any doubts about the kind of company the Beast of Bentonville really is, Wal-Mart is happy to effectively lie to make sure its executives get their huge bonuses.

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Each day comes another example of stupid, confusing, contradictory messaging from the president. Maybe the whole thing about inequality and raising the minimum wage is, for the president, just an exercise in politics. But, man, get the fucking politics right. Which does not include embracing Wal-Mart.

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It’s sort of a tiring exercise. Each time some so-called “free trade” deal comes up, the president at the time (read: Bill Clinton, George Bush and Barack Obama) trots out a whole series of phony arguments to make the case for a very bad agreement–bad if you are anything but a corporation. You have to willfully ignore past evidence to swallow the same old tired arguments used to ram through these crappy agreements. But, let’s celebrate an anniversary here to trumpet the collapse of any plausible argument being used to sell the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

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With one hand, he giveth a few dollars to the people, and with the other hand, he showers huge corporations with a tax gift that is astounding in its…audacity? That’s how I suggest you can look at the president’s executive order to pay more workers overtime (a good thing) versus his budget proposal to…pay attention now..CUT corporate tax rates.

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I don’t mind disagreeing with opponents on the merits of one proposal versus another. But, I have very little tolerance for just lying about the facts or, at best, muddling the truth about the reality. And, so, it is with healthcare: the continuing myth, promoted by both the political and media jabbering low-minds, that the president and his former Secretary of State both made the same mistake on health care–they opted for something too “complex” “inflexible”, “secretive” or “socialistic”, or a combination of all of the aforementioned descriptions.

It’s utter nonsense. They did make the same mistake–but it had nothing to do with complexity. It was entirely their immoral unwillingness to confront two powerful industries that have relentlessly killed hundreds of thousands of people, either by bankrupting those people or literally denying them care.

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