Bill Michtom's Open Salon Blog

That was then, apparently.

Mon, 14 Mar 2011 03:03:42 -0400

Mr. Obama,

In 2007, you said:

If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain when I'm in the White House, I'll put on a comfortable pair of shoes [&] I'll walk on that picket line with you as president of the United States of America because workers deserve to know that somebody is standing in their corner.

Got on those comfortable shoes?

'Cause you ain't in our corner, motherfucker.

Time to Desert the Democrats

Mon, 14 Mar 2011 03:03:13 -0400

People have a tendency to treat "Progressive/Liberal/Left/Democrat" as though the words are remotely equivalent. To do so is to lose control of the discussion before it starts. A Democrat is a member of, or voter for, a political party, one with no philosophy or principles, merely the desire to maintain itself.

The other three words can be described in terms of political philosophies and hoped for programs that generally include providing decent lives for the 98% of the population who are not rich or, at least, upper-middle-class.

Important parts of Progressive/Liberal/Left ideology are: no wars of aggression (the opposite of the American Empire's hallmark my entire life (1947-)); decent work for a living wage; the ability to easily join a democratic (small d) union; the importance of social welfare programs: unemployment, affordable, effective health care, defined-benefit pensions (NOT defined-contributions (401k plans)); accessible education for everyone through college for those capable and interested; a society welcoming to all, regardless of race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, reproductive freedom, etc.

None of these are functional principles of the Democratic Party, most especially since the rise of the DLC under Clinton and the election of Obama.

Anyone who wastes time focusing on the origins of these policies among the right wing to deny the responsibility of the Democrats for enabling and continuing their expansion and normalization is, to my mind, a part of the problem, not the solution.

I feel that that people who consider themselves to be Progressive/Liberal/Left and yet support--or even tolerate--Obama and the Dems are delusional and self-defeating.

We must start making clear to the Dems that people on the left--and that is everyone who wants the society I sketched out above--must stop voting for, supporting or talking up--in any way--Democratic politics.

Yes, the Rs are marginally worse, but the margins are trifling and the continued support of the Dems does more damage than what the Rs may accomplish: It normalizes those policies, makes them bipartisan (Obama's excuse for every vile thing he supports and every good thing he doesn't).

If you want to change the country, stop voting for any politician that doesn't commit to complete repudiation of this president's viciously anti-human policies.

The Rise of the 98%

Sat, 22 Jan 2011 05:01:44 -0500

Keith Olbermann made numbers of powerful and accurate critiques of DC politics, but he was a man making about $7.5 million a year and, consequently, well-removed from the concerns and problems of everyday life in the US. And, as a journalist, he was (mostly and ethically) not putting his money where his mouth was.

I look forward to seeing what he will do now, since he need not be constricted by any issues of partisanship.

But, we don't don't need him to be there to make those observations. We can do that ourselves. Not to mention, he was (like the Fox people) mostly preaching to the choir.

We, the 98%, that keep this country functioning, must do what the right did to get itself in a position to affect Republican Party politics: organize, apply pressure to the mainstream of the Dems who do the bidding of their corporate masters. Become Democratic Party precinct captains. Go to county and city Democratic Party meetings and vote for policies that support a green economy, that stop war funding, that keep the hired hands of the robber barons from stealing more of our common wealth: Take over the Democratic Party all over the country from the corporate pawns. There can be no compromise.

I firmly believe that, as long as we continue to vote for the (nominally) lesser of two evils, we will never create a politics that is for the 98%. If the Republicans win in the interim, things may get worse short-term (though they are already horrific now), but, I get less than $1100 a month from Social Security and a small pension, and I'm willing to take the chance. Do you really think we will do better under the Ds. Put down that crack pipe, please!

The majority of Americans want universal single payer health care. We want out of wars. We want the United States to spend its money at home to benefit the jobless and the underemployed; to build housing for the homeless and the poor; to repair and replace the crumbling American infrastructure: programs that could put us all to work, not merely enhance the wealth of the 2%. We want the rich taxed more. We want Medicare and Social Security to be inviolate. We want the return of the rule of law, the end of government spying and detention outside the Constitution and the US Code.

This is what individuals say in greater numbers when they are polled about these issues. This is not a "center-right" country. That's mythology that is based on the completely inaccurate self-definitions that pollsters sometimes ask: "Do you think of yourself as Democrat, Republican or independent?" Or, "Do you think you are a liberal or a conservative or a moderate?" These are meaningless questions. It's when people are asked the particulars that we know--from their answers--that they--we--want community, not devastating, selfish individualism.

But, devastating, selfish individualism is the policy of the Ds and the Rs: divide and conquer. Obama and the Democratic leadership are as much tools of the corporations: the medico-industrial complex, the military-industrial complex, the oil/energy giants, and, of course, the financial industry, as the Republicans.

That financial industry, particularly, has been doing exactly what it did in the run up to the Great Depression, with the complete cooperation of both parties. Officially, the recession is over, but that is only true for the corporations, who have posted record profits. We, the 98%, including the Tea Party believers who are working against their own self interest, are being robbed by the corporations with the daily assistance of our elected "representatives."

We are left without jobs, homes, pensions or prospects. We have corporate health "care" that will continue to rise at unsustainable levels, while not giving us health care we can actually afford (even if there are no pre-existing conditions exclusions), because the Ds are as corrupt as the Rs. The so-called deficit hawks (including Obama and his appointees to the Deficit Commission) are happy with the deficits as long as it is not being spent on the 98%.

It is clear that they--all of them, Ds and Rs--are lying about deficits and health care costs. The United States spends more than twice as much as the other countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development for health care per individual. (see the Wikipedia article on OECD http://bit.ly/97OQ5p) These are the countries of Europe, along with Japan, Australia, New Zealand and a few others (country list http://bit.ly/g5d7ij) So, if our "leaders" were concerned about the deficit, they would have immediately instituted universal single payer health care, which would save around $1 trillion per YEAR, with better health outcomes.

The much ballyhooed tax cuts for the rich will cost $690 billion over the next decade http://bit.ly/dGeoXK. That's $69 billion per year compared to an annual savings through single payer of $1 trillion dollars. But the tax cuts are for the rest of us, too. That (according to Paul Krugman http://nyti.ms/gCQmAQ) amounts to $4 trillion over the next decade. So that's $400 billion a year, once again compared to a $1 trillion savings every year.

Even if the savings didn't work out to the full trillion (transition costs, other unforeseen issues), what if we saved "only" $750 billion per year?

You get the picture. The health care costs are the heart of the budget problem. Social Security is completely uninvolved in the debt because SS has its own funding, hence, has no influence on the debt. As long as people and companies are getting charged the payroll tax, SS is collecting money.

Meanwhile, Obama, who has been pushing for cuts to SS, has "cut a deal" with the Rs to reduce the payroll tax by 2% for the next two years. When the sensible, REAL deficit hawk approach would be to remove the cap on payroll taxes (currently topping out at $106,000 per year of income--that is, once you earn $106,000, you don't pay any more payroll taxes on earned income). Our "bipartisan" government is cutting the actual amount SS collects, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy: "SS is running out of money."

I strongly recommend reading "How the Performance of the U.S. Health Care System Compares Internationally, 2010 Update" to get a sense of how diseased our health care system really is. http://bit.ly/eCKSAJ

I more strongly suggest we should stop voting for Ds who do not challenge--and vote against--Obama's policies. Remember, these are now, under Obama, bipartisan policies that, for all their bitching and moaning, the Rs are very happy with. The whining is all about making things worse, and the Ds will give into it over and over, as they have since the 1970s, and, especially since the Clinton regime.

We are in terrible trouble in this country and sitting at home complaining, or watching TV personalities, as clever and entertaining as they may be, means we are deluding ourselves that the Dems and Obama are going to suddenly turn around and see the light. Obama and his party are doing exactly what they intend to. It is not bad advisors (as I have seen some say). Nor is it obstructionist Republicans, since the Dems have been going along with Republican policies since Clinton passed NAFTA and helped get the Glass-Steagall Act (http://bit.ly/cySuNn) overturned in 1999--with the help of then-Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers.

We should start taking over the Democratic Party. We should organize to be out in the street, standing in the way of the machine that is breaking us on the wheel of capitalism.

We have nothing to lose but our chains.

What Obama should say in the SOTU

Fri, 7 Jan 2011 15:01:55 -0500

In the Washington Monthly they have a "Special" which has a group of answers to the title question. I was inspired to give you this:

"You know I completely fooled the Democratic base that got me elected. But I do want to thank them for the hard work they did. That's what you get when you choose the lesser of two evils: still evil.

Just so you don't bother me again, or get upset when I behave like a corporatist, I AM a corporatist. Get over it.

Republicans, I don't cave to you, I am you: caring about the wealthy and corporations; working for the military industrial complex, the medico-industrial complex; the corporate-whatever complex. Thanks for your assistance for getting me into office by making me look sane and caring by comparison to McCain & Palin.

As to where I was born ... why do you care? Remember when I said I was going to be the president of all Americans? That was BS. Despite my mixed race and the color of my skin, I am the president of rich Americans: black, white, red, yellow. The only color that matters is long green.

In God we trust. All others pay cash.

Thank you and goodnight.

Time to improve our methods

Mon, 13 Sep 2010 16:09:03 -0400

Have you noticed that the right wing completely controls political discussion in the country?

The economy is in the toilet (or it will be with a little improvement); the wars expand into new countries (more deaths, more new terrorists who hate our freedoms ... to bomb and invade); the Constitution continues to be decimated by the man who has sworn to "preserve, protect and defend" it (new boss same as the old), and the mindless militia of morons receives its marching orders from Beck, Limbaugh, Gingrich, the Koch brothers, Murdoch, et al, and (with the enthusiastic assistance of what passes for journalism in this country) the topic of the moment becomes some pin head in Ass Wipe, Florida, or the conquest of the country by Sharia because the vicious Muslims are going to put up a Building of Evil which, somehow, will ... what? ... send out a brain-washing ray and implant the Qur'an in our cortex (or, based on the fears of the right, our amygdalas)?

We have let people--who can't find their ass with both hands and GPS--waste our time and energy in debates that will never be productive for us or the country, because these folks are literally unable to understand (theauthoritarians.com) what we are saying.

I am going to spend my time talking to people who have been misinformed or are still thinking about the issues, not cowardly bullies—those who get their armchair jollies with fantasies of killing or imprisoning our (oh-so-many) "enemies"—helping the rich steal the results of Americans' hard work.

I urge all who have common sense, compassion, open minds, and a desire to improve our economic and social conditions to withdraw from interactions with the foot soldiers of ignorance.