The Bush Regime Has Declared War on Hope and Change and the American Worker

[McCamy Taylor]

I. The Shrub Does Not Fall Far From the Bush

Bush Jr. is acting exactly like Poppy did when he was forced out of the White House by Bill Clinton. Recall that Bush Sr. played a bunch of “tricks” on his elected successor and the nation. He got the country embroiled in a war in Somalia.

http://www.blogd.com/archives/000332.html

This misadventure contributed to the reluctance to intervene in Rwanda, proving that every nasty action has a consequence. He left mole, Linda Tripp, behind on the White House staff. She was hooked up with veteran CREEP member, Lucianne Goldberg, who infiltrated McGovern’s campaign disguised as a journalist in 1972 in order to dig up dirt on him for Nixon.

http://american_almanac.tripod.com/witches.htm

Bush Sr. even managed to get the press to insinuate that Ruby Ridge occurred on Clinton’s watch, so that we have a whole generation of idiots like this:

http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070802141949AAQjdEU


II. The Third Shoe is Dropped: Morphing the Bush SEC Madoff Scandal Into a Democratic Scandal

When you are a selected not elected president, it must be difficult to leave the highest office in the land. You want your policies to last forever. You believe that your word should be law until the end of time---which will happen when Israel goes up in a giant mushroom cloud, or so your preacher says. That’s why you have to do everything to prevent peace in the Middle East.

The nation elected Hope and Change to be our new leaders. However, the people who currently occupy the executive branch have different ideas. Predicting what they will do is no problem. The Bush cabal may hate the environment, but there is one thing they like to recycle---dirty tricks.

Already, they have unleashed the DOJ---the Dogs of (In)Justice. Sort of like the Dogs of War, but without any honor or principles. The corporate press salivates each day as it gets new leaks about “Obama” related investigations that have absolutely nothing to do with the president elect. Here is the AP’s atrocious headline about a Grand Jury investigation (meaning that no charges have been filed) into a California based company that gives money to Democrats (imagine that!) that got some work in New Mexico. Note that the target is likely to be someone who hired companies to do work for the state. That list does not include Obama, however, that has not stopped the AP from writing this headline:

Firm’s Ties to Obama Probed

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/bal-te.richardson17dec17,0,3947327.story

WTF? Let me see if I get this straight. Obama is the One. The One is everywhere. So, everyplace that a Grand Jury investigates official corruption it is an Obama scandal? .

Another investigation that is being turned into a Democratic scandal by the corporate press is the one involving Bernard Madoff of the missing $50 billion and Ponzi scheme. For a month, no one wanted to talk about it. This week, suddenly, the mainstream media wants to discuss two aspects of the case. First, we keep hearing that in 1999, someone filed a complaint about him, and no one at the SEC took it seriously. You get that, right? 1999? Clinton. There were two later complaints, but the press glosses over those. Chairman Cox has climbed onto his righteous crusader horse and is getting all….righteous.

http://www.freep.com/article/20081217/BUSINESS07/81217038/1020/BUSINESS

WASHINGTON — In a stunning rebuke, the Securities and Exchange Commission chairman blames his career regulators for a decade-long failure to investigate Wall Street money manager Bernard L. Madoff, now accused of running one of the largest Ponzi schemes ever.

On Tuesday night, SEC Chairman Christopher Cox ordered an internal investigation of what went wrong and offered a scathing critique of the conduct of his staff attorneys. He said they never bothered to seek a formal commission-approved investigation that would have forced Madoff to surrender vital information under subpoena. Instead, the staff relied on information voluntarily produced by Madoff and his firm.
Credible and specific allegations regarding Madoff’s financial wrongdoing going back to at least 1999 were repeatedly brought to the attention of SEC staff, said Cox.
A former SEC attorney, Eric Swanson, married Madoff’s niece, Shana, last year, the Wall Street Journal reported. The SEC’s compliance office issued a statement today saying that Swanson was part of a team that looked into Madoff’s securities brokerage operation in 1999 and 2004. The SEC cited its “strict rules” prohibiting employees from participating in cases involving firms where they have a personal interest.

Chairman Cox's righteous crusader act would be more convincing if he was not attacking from a defensive position. The above article does not tell us what precipitated his sudden conversion from industry champion to industry watchdog. A couple of days ago, someone filed a complaint against (drum roll) Chairman Cox .

http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/stories/2008/12/15/daily7.html

Financial author Gunther Karger has filed a complaint with the inspector general of the Securities and Exchange Commission regarding oversight of Bernard Madoff, who the SEC charged last week with securities fraud.

Snip

According to typical SEC oversight procedures, Madoff’s investment advisory firm, which was formed in 2006, should have been examined within the first year, then every five years thereafter, Karger said.

Snip

Karger filed a formal compliant on Dec. 12 with SEC Inspector General David Kotz, asking for an investigation of SEC Chairman Christopher Cox and other SEC commissioners to determine “if the chairman and the commissioners have discharged their responsibilities and, if not, what actions must be taken to ensure that the SEC meets its responsibilities to the public.”
“I expect it will be a while before I hear from anyone there,” Karger said. “But, I hope they take it seriously.”

I think they took it seriously. Seriously enough to mount an aggressive cover up.

The other type of Madoff story is getting even more coverage in the last couple of days. You see, Madoff gave more money to Democrats than Republicans. So, Fox News has this:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2008/12/15/madoff-hefty-political-contributions-politicians/

It reads like a who's who of liberal Democrats: Clinton, Corzine, Dodd, Schumer, Kerry, Markey, Rangel, Bradley, Lautenberg ... and yes, even Obama.

I hope everyone is getting all this. Chairman Cox at the Bush SEC fails to follow his own agency's guidelines and does not oversee Madoff’s company. This occurs at a time when the Bush administration has gone to court to prevent states from prosecuting lenders that engage in fraudulent practices. Corporate criminals would have to be brain dead not to get the message. The SEC will not oversee your activities. The Bush administration will not prosecute you if you steal. Mukasey will prevent the states from prosecuting you if you steal. The world is your oyster. Go stuff your face!

And now it is Obama’s fault that we are paying the price.


III. Heads Out of the Clouds, Democrats! The Corporate Media Hates Unions!

The corporate media is controlled by giant corporations which despise unions. Here is an example of Time-Warner (which owns CNN) and its union busting tactics:

http://district1.cwa-union.org/

CNN violated federal labor law and the legal rights of more than 250 workers at the Washington, D.C., and New York bureaus by using a phony reorganization scheme for the sole purpose of eliminating their NABET-CWA representation, the administrative law judge found.
In late 2003, CNN terminated its more than 20-year contract with Team Video Services, which employed union camera operators, broadcast engineers and other technicians for CNN, in effect, firing more than 110 workers. The network claimed it would create its own unit of employees, however, Judge Arthur J. Amchan called that unit a "sham," used to get rid of employees and their union. CNN's goal was to "achieve a nonunion technical work force in its Washington, D.C., and New York bureaus." CNN's "widespread and egregious misconduct" showed a flagrant and general disregard for employees' fundamental rights, he said.

Here is an example of the lengths to which two Detroit papers were willing to go in order to bust their two unions:

http://dbacon.igc.org/Unions/02ubust0.htm

In 1995, management of both Detroit newspapers put demands on the table which they knew would be unacceptable to unions - replacing cost-of-living raises with merit increases, and eliminating union jobs while creating non-union positions doing the same work. The existence of a plan to force a strike was amply demonstrated by meetings between management and the Sterling Heights police department. The Detroit Newspaper Agency, a joint operation of both newspapers to share production and distribution facilities, promised four months before the strike started to compensate the department for overtime costs it would incur in shepherding scabs into the plant.
By the time the strike was a year old, the agency had paid Sterling Heights $2.1 million for police overtime.

There is more so I will let you read it yourself. The battle between the people who bring us the news and the people who work from them is an old one. With advertising revenue declining, these companies try to cut costs wherever they can. Plus, the corporations that own CBS, ABC etc. also own cable, telephone, movies, manufacturing and a lot of other labor intensive industries that could benefit from some creative union busting. Right now, the GOP is promising that it will sell its filibuster power to the highest bidder to prevent the new Obama administration from enacting rules that will empower workers to demand better benefits and higher wages.

The press saw Obama do the unthinkable. He expressed solidarity with 250 union workers who did not "go gentle into that goodnight." He did not look at things from the bank's point of view or from the factory owner's point of view. He was already elected, so he did not have to appeal to any voting base, but he still sympathized with the plight of workers who had been laid off and deprived of their rights just before the holidays. If an employer can not lay off a bunch of workers right before Christmas and deny them their severance with the blessing of the president, what is America coming to?

You do the math. Then, get on the phone and start calling the SOBs who are putting out this anti-worker propaganda. They are going slowly right now, because Obama’s popularity is high, and no network wants to draw too much attention to itself for fear of a backlash. Give them a backlash. Every time a story links someone else’s crap to Obama, the parent company needs to be called out for it. The press is on the ropes, too. They want access to the new administration. They want an audience. Even Fox is having second thoughts about being Fox in this new environment, so you can bet that no one else wants to become Fox News in the public mind. Threaten to turn them into Fox News if they do not play fair.

Remember, Whitewater was 100% spin, but very few people in America remember that now.

[antimatter98]

1. So have Congress, corporations and banks.

What is happening financially and in the unemployment situation is a massive
attack---an attack---upon Americans who earn a salary, union or not.

Congress is in support of this (what are they doing for the foreclosed, the
unemployed, and individuals who have lost their pensions?). Congress approved
the repeal of Glass-Steagall, 22% credit card rates, and zero regulation of
financial markets. Congress is like the Chamber of Commerce, not like a Congress.

Corporations and banks are in it. (your 401K, pension, other accounts, and
your employment)

What I find astonishing is that Americans are just sitting back, and not acting,
which would tell anyone that "Americans are so conditioned to be passive that
they will never rise up, again."

Aside: As good as blogs are, they absorb a lot of anger and energy that could be used
--as in the 60's and war of independence---to actually make something happen,
other than billions of typed letters. I bet if electronic blogs had existed
prior to 1776, that billons of text lines would have been written complaining
about the British, but that in 2008, we'd pledge to the Queen and be driving
on the left side of the road---still angry, but controlled by the UK.

[McCamy Taylor]

3. I have a different view of the internet. American printing presses allowed Tom Paine and others

to publish pamphlets that crystalized the thoughts of the dissatisfied American colonialists. They recognized the source of their own unease in these writings, and the writings spurred them to take action, by convincing them that they were not alone. The written word carries great authority. When we see it, we nebulous thoughts gain the ring of truth. In addition, people who may be isolated---perhaps there are only a handful of progressives on each suburban or rural community---realize that there are a large number of Americans who feel the way that they do.

The internet made the election of Barack Obama possible. Without it, many people would have thought that he did not stand a chance of being voted into office in the United States, since the television punditry is years behind in its portrayal of the typical American voter as blinded by race. Those of us who know real people and who read the internet understood that race hardly matters anymore compared to a host of other issues when it comes to elections. For instance, interracial dating has been the norm in our nation's high schools since the early 1970s, though you would never know it from watching television. The for pay press is heavily edited to appeal to an imaginary "common denominator" that does not exist. The internet is a product of the real America. It is its voice. The internet is as revolutionary as the invention of the printing press. That is why the right wing is so desperate to censor it.

[mentalslavery]

5. This is very true. We have a tool for information sharing and

organizing that is very powerful. Especially because like-minded people can merge from all over. If we will ourselves forward, we can use blogs to organize social movements and make changes. It is true that blogs absorb anger. That is good. We should not react in an emotional state. We should plan in a rational way to achieve agreed upon goals. Additionally, blogs can create anger as well as absorb. I regularly read about something going on in this country via blog. I get mad as hell and that anger motivates me to do something. After thinking about what I can do I organize to do something about it. Sometimes it is small, sometimes it is big.

Most importantly, the internet allows people to evaluate information in a non-biased way. That is what scares the hell out of the power structure. You don't know me and I don't know you. We don't have some established relationship where I am the authority and you are submissive. You are able to judge what I have to say based upon the information I provide. No personality, no character, no control over the message. I say what I want to say, and so do you. If I think you are full of it, I might tell you so or just ignore what you write. If I or others post BS, then we get called on it and we lose legitimacy. No one is calling the media out. There is no check on what they present, until now.

Basically, we are always told that this is bad journalism or merely opinion because we don't know who is writing what. We don't know if they are qualified. Who they are. What job or social status they hold. That is the strength. We are smart enough to evaluate information on its own. We are smart enough to double check, or look into something that someone is saying. I like this forum, my ideas a judged in and of themselves. Im a teacher of college. People always listen to me because of my role. I'm supposed to know everything. Either way, Im right because I make the test. It is a circular firing squad that does not lead to enlightenment. If I listen to something that someone says here and repeat it and it is wrong, big deal. The MSM is always wrong. It is fucking pathetic. Think about it, what have they ever got right that is important. They tell us shit all the time and then when we reject their legitimacy, they turn to us and say, "are your sure you can trust other bloggers". The answer is sometimes, but I can evaluate information for myself and I know can't trust the MSM.

[mentalslavery]

6. Think for yourselves!!

Trust me. It works

[mdmc]

2. Bush will have plenty of company

[mentalslavery]

4. Obama views the economy

in a pragmatic way, which is good. This is good because he might be open to aiding in the individual ownership of natural resources as an aspect of property ownership rights.

A little over looked fact is that a "good economy" or "bad economy" are supposed to be ways of expressing to the average person how they can expect to live and work. Primarily, things such as; What standard of living will the average salary provide?-Will their job be stable?-or Will they be laid off?-are common questions that "economics" are supposed to answer. The unfortunate pattern is that all the common measures of a "good" or "bad" economy distort this relationship.

For example, the poor (below the official poverty line) are better off when the economy is "bad". This relationship is counterproductive. This is because government programs increase in scope and funding during a "bad" economy and decrease during a "good" economy. The cycle is one of the primary forces that maintain surplus labor.

The average worker does not do very well during a "good" economy because "good" is determined (largely) by corporate profits which are typically "invested" to reduce cost, (unemployment or deskilling). A good economy does benefit the stock market class (generally), however, 1% of the pop owns 34% of stock and the top 5% of wealth holders basically have the pie. Thus, when people hear that the economy is good, for most, it is really bad. When all those investment/commercial banks where claiming extreme power and financial stability it implied, and people took it to mean, that they were the backbone of the economy. However, in reality they were jacking up the interest rates on mortgages and credit which screwed us.

A real economy has a product at the end point of every investment and profits per commodity. A real economy does not overproduce. This economy we have is dangerously close to contradictions so large that the possible changes to the way we live are unthinkable.

We have moved to an unproductive economy. This is what is beneficial for the average worker.

First, you (most people) don't want the economy to grow uncontrollably. You don't want rapid growth. A rapidly growing economy is unstable. In the short term, you might benefit, but in the long term, you will lose. Basically, get ready to lose your job or have it deskilled. You want an economy that is at equilibrium. A growing economy implies that there will be more opportunity for you, however, in reality there will be less. For example, when a sector, like cell phone production, "grows", each person in that process works a job that can be worked by another. As it "grows", more people are needed to help produce cell phones. The end result is that a large population emerges that can all work the other persons job, and therefore they engage in "competition to the bottom". When it hits a breaking point, your job has become low in value and therefore pay. A rare skill is a high paying skill (assuming want) and as rarity decreases, so does pay.

Second, we don't want to "create" new jobs. We want job merging that brings the skill level,(and pay) up. The ideal situation is to move into a job that challenges a person and provides opportunities to gain skills. Therefore, pay will increase as well as a persons ability to move to another position should one type of employment not suit them. Therefore, we should never allow business to "re-train" or "do away with jobs", but they should be always attempting to merge duties and increase pay. This should be an ongoing process, not a sudden shock to families who's bread winners have to completely switch gears in mid-money earning years. You don't know how many people I have taught in college who just showed up to work one day and where told that they had to go to college to get "re-trained". They are established as parents with mortgages and children and going to college is an unrealistic task for most. They look very lost and scared. This process is dysfunctional, as dramatic shifting is not good for production or human beings. This process does benefit corporations because labor decreases in value, and therefore operating cost are lower making profits higher. All profit is from adding a fee on labor. A fee that labor does not receive. It is impossible to "gain" profit without labor. It is commonly rationalized that investors see this profit because of the capital investment that started the chain of events of production. However, labor has a very powerful weapon. That weapon is to wait for capital investments to come in and raw material to be purchased and to immediately strike all production until profit sharing is agreed upon. While it is true that capital investment is typically necessary for business production
to occur, labor is always necessary. Labor must begin to demand profit sharing and preferential treatment in profit sharing. They have the upper hand and don't even realize it. Do you know how scared shit-less owners would be if they got all the materials in place and labor refused to work. That is instant debt and a scare to future investment, basically the death to that business owner. Owners act tough, because they can hold out and be more comfortable during the process, however, labor can take the business apart. We have a unique opportunity to take advantage of this power if we organize toward a common goal, which is sustaining life outside of labor force participation. This is technologically possible, however, to create a society of workers who are not dependent on work for survival will be a task. Once we are independent, striking will not come at such a cost.

Third, there are only two types of value in an economy. Use-value and symbolic value, and an item will have a mixture of both. You will want to avoid items that are overwhelmingly symbolic. Water and food have use-value, if it is "all dressed" at a fancy restaurant then some of the price is determined by "symbolic value". Some things, diamonds and gold, are almost purely symbolic. The real economy involves everyone being mindful of the two forms of value and recognizing when the macro and micro economy are dominated with symbolic value. Such is the situation currently and that situation is dangerous because symbols will not feed you or put a roof over your head or get you to and from work.

This derivative, hedge fund, stock market, bullshit is unproductive and dangerous (macro)and must be organized such that stocks-and everything else-do not pay out unless the profit actually exists. Therefore, at the end of the week, if 20 investors and 20 workers have created something that has be sold at a profit ($40), then the value of that stock or paper commodity is equal to that weeks investment and not determined by predictive equations. Thus, they all get a dollar. This will have the additional effect of slowing grow. Which remember, is good.

When you buy water from a corporation that is merely using public water or marginalizing indigenous populations over seas, that is unproductive and dangerous (micro). Sometimes I overhear people talking about what has more value and what has less value and they are always misguided. They talk about stocks or corporations, or land, or precious jewels. It is very simple, water is the most valuable thing in the world. You are dependent upon it. Food, comes thereafter, only because you can live longer without food than without water. Your body is basically water. It inflates us, without it, we are nothing. If we keep up this path that we are on we will see exactly how much value water has. Food is also very valuable. These two things are the two things in the world with the highest value, we can never allow governments or corporations to convince us that a little damage is acceptable. We must express it in terms of value because "economic semantics" is what is used against us to convince us of our "needs" and "wants". This is a term they will have a hard time dealing with.

Additionally, and then I am done, for now. You want your money (economy) to be backed by large de-centralized stock-piles of clean food and water. Anybody arguing that we should bring back the gold standard will have to explain how it benefits a person to take the gold and sell it at a deflated rate to buy food and water. Backing a currency is for the purposes of regulating currency production and providing for people in times of instability and crisis. Thus, money backed by clean food and water will have real value, use-value. Universal use-value.

We will not be able to increase the amount of dollar bills that are printed without setting aside clean food and water, therefore, this process will deal with stagflation, inflation, and deflation. When, or if, this whole ponzi scheme we call the global economy falls apart, you will be able to cash you cash in for the commodities that have the highest value, food and water. It is always during times of crisis that all the marketing bs becomes transparent. You don't even need your house or your clothes. You might be uncomfortable and you might not live very long, but lack of those two commodities will not kill you in and of themselves. Additionally, there are currently tribes that survive very well today, with minimal of either.

Therefore, re-think your house and property. Dig up those pretty flowers and plant something you can store and eat. Every square inch of your roof is extra space that is waiting for a solar panel. Your yard is the same. Do not let corporations monopolize natural resources.

I read an article about a guy who filled his roof with solar panels and now the electric department pays him. He has reduced his cost of living by eliminating utility bills. He can pay that house off, modify a car to run off the solar power that he stores in batteries and pass both on to his child who will never pay to operate transportation or ever pay a utility bill. That is a true investment in something of value and will increase the wealth holdings of that family. The child will only pay for food cost and keep more of their salary compared to others. Over a couple generations, this process might enable the family to save enough money to build a completely automated food production facility on their property and produce their own food, using solar energy and filtered rain water. If such a family was to rethink food production, they would probably build large a structure very similar to a parking garage that is fully enclosed, the exterior covered in solar panels. This will maximize space, (an acre outdoors becomes 12 if one builds a 12 story structure which is a better use of land and does not have the same or "as severe" effects of traditional farming) and the enclosed environment will decrease the need for pesticides and inhibit disease and/or crop failure. Assuming a high capital investment from all that money saved via generations of solar/and or wind energy ownership, they might be able to build a very sophisticated operation. They will probably be sick less and have better general health, enabling them to be more productive and have more wealth. That wealth can then be passed on to future family members who could make larger investments in more natural resource ownership. There is no reason why this model can not be applied in urban areas. There is no reason that this model can not incorporate community ownership partnerships. I realize this is a big task, however, a society that can meet the basic needs of survival without labor force participation is empowered.

[sasquuatch55]

7. Bush's Medical Refusal Rule

I want to see this brought into the light, and exposed to the the country. When any medical treatment, ect. can be denied to any patient, by ANYONE associated with, or has contact dealing with the patient, if it goes against the associates beliefs. A janitor at a hospital, clinic,ect. can keep you from getting a treatment or procedure. A cashier at walmart can refuse to sell you a prescription (like birth control pills) because it goes against their beliefs. It goes much deeper than this, and is too lengthy for me to explain, so I urge you to RESEARCH THIS. This is pure lunacy, and very dangerous. PLEASE SOMEONE: REPORT ON THIS.