Friday Cat Blogging from the Left Paw Society

Friday Cat Blogging From the Left Paw Society

The Third Way is really just the second...

x-listed @ eurotrib.com

Almost simultaneously with the Philip Stephens article that Jérôme points out in his"Third Way" diary, the Post Autistic Economics Review comes out with an interesting article on that very subject:



Is New Labour's `Third Way' new or just hot air in old bottles. The paper is interesting and downloadable to word for free.

Grazia letto-Gillies' article starts with a brief historical overview of the history of political economy in Britain since WWII: "The First Way refers to the period from after WWII to the mid 1970s; the second Way refers to the Conservative Government period starting from 1979; and the Third Way to the New Labour Government period since 1997."

She goes on to explain the dire economic situation of the 70s that led to Thatcher's 'second way', but she makes an important point: that the economic problems have turned out to be deeply embedded in the system itself:

However, in a way the major problem was for capital itself. Though some investment opportunities were created and some foreign capital attracted in more deprived areas, the basic problem was that the shedding of activities by the state does not automatically create profitable investment opportunities. Most of the activities which were in public ownership by the 1970s had originally become so because they were not profitable under private ownership. They did not necessarily or not always become profitable when the Thatcher government privatised them. With every privatisation the City went into euphoria because immediately after each selling by the government the value of the company shot up with huge gains for the buyers and for the institutions involved in the deals; this is not surprising given the fact that the public companies' assets were sold at grossly low prices. However, often the euphoria became short-lived as many companies faced difficulties and needed propping up with continuous handouts from the taxpayer

Thatcherism proved volatile, divisive and, in the end, unsuccessful and dissatisfactory. New Labour was thus elected with high hopes...

The expectations were soon to be checked by the reality of a government that: put economic prudence and stability over fulfilment of pent up needs; put the financial expectations and interests of the higher echelons of society, the City, the big corporations - domestic and foreign - and the right wing press before those of the millions of people who voted it in; proved to be very aggressive in foreign policy and over enthusiastic for wars to achieve those aggressive aims; developed a very cavalier attitude towards democracy and accountability on the strength of a high parliamentary majority achieved, partly, through the specific British electoral system

The author then goes into a lengthy discussion of New Labour's economic policies, especially healthcare. At every turn she notes the dissatisfaction (economic and affective) with the solutions. Again, the problems point to an overall weakening system rather than the ability or inability of governments to tweak elements of the system. The higher orders of global capital are to blame, that is to say, our beliefs in certain economic "laws" [I am perhaps reading into her argument here]:

The problems of this Blair-Brown grand design for the public sector are beginning to unravel and they will increase as time goes by: problems for the user of public services; problems for the health workers and eventually problems for capital; problems for the State and the political class. Why the latter two problems? Because this grand design signals a profound structural crisis for capitalism. If the system needs propping up via continuous State intervention it cannot be very healthy. So what is going to happen when all that can be outsourced is outsourced and an even larger share of inland revenue goes to pay for private companies' profits?

Moreover, the state is in danger of despoiling itself of major functions and this may lead to a problem of legitimacy: if the State's function is limited to collecting taxes and handing them over to private - domestic and foreign - companies for the actual provision of services can the State justify itself? Will this create also problems for democracy? (Florio, 2004: 155).

A separate important question may be one that political scientists and future historian of politics may be able to tackle: how is it possible for a Labour-led Parliament to preside over the erosion leading to the demise of the NHS and to similar trends in other public services? A question almost as important as why the parliament and the Labour Party did not call government to account over the Iraq war. The huge amount of obfuscating that has been and is going on may explain why it was difficult for the wider public to understand the significance of the changes, but not why competent elected MPs accepted them

In England, as here in America, the debate has been so constrained and so deliberately shaped, that it has become difficult to talk about--much less confront--the issues of capital. This reflects, in somewhat different terms, what Jérôme said earlier today about discourse:

So despite running a massive traditional left-wing tax-and-spend programme (while pretending to be neo-liberals), the Blair/Brown duo has stabilised inequality. Surely that would suggest that the focus be put on policies rather than on discourse?

If the left does not fight for the ideas of the left, nobody will bother to implement them. The right, pushed away from its natural right-of-center place in public discourse, will focus on populist or socially conservative ideas to try to regain ground, but will certainly not advertise the usual moderate socio-economic policies it used to practise while in government. Once in power, it won't feel the need to change the tone of economic discourse, but it is likely to stop the tax-and spend ways of government.

The problem is that all of our public servants believe the same thing; only their implementation vary, and only then by small degrees. We are lacking a philosophical tie to hold on to, to debate because our "leaders" are programmed, trained, sculpted by the same educational and formative experiences. We are highly in need of some true representation.

More great news for children in the U.S.

The EPI is reporting that:

The rate of uninsured children in the United States has increased for the first time in seven years, from 10.8% in 2004 to 11.2% in 2005. From 2004 to 2005, the number of uninsured children grew by 361,000 to a total of 8.3 million uninsured children.

This is not surprising. However, every time I come across statistics like this, it reminds me of what a strange culture the U.S. has. Somehow, the words like "family values," "culture of life," and "moral compass" roll of people's tongues as if it were reality when in fact the reality is quite the opposite.

You know this, of course. Luckily, Medicaid steps in (minimally) to cover what the rest of our system does not.Image Source Courtesy of EPI

I can only think of Cat Stevens' "Where Do the Children Play?":

[...]Well youve cracked the sky, scrapers fill the air.
But will you keep on building higher
til theres no more room up there?
Will you make us laugh, will you make us cry?
Will you tell us when to live, will you tell us when to die?

I know weve come a long way,
Were changing day to day,
But tell me, where do the children play?

Saturday Bird Blogging...

Here's a picture of a egret from Bolsa Chica. Lighting was not optimal, so it doesn't have

all the colors I'd like to see. Maybe next time.

I spent the morning thinking about torture. As usual, Digby gets this right--really, really, really, right.

Don't anybody say "I didn't see it coming."

Friday Cat Blogging from the Left Paw Society

Sorry to have taken so long to put this picture up. I've been busy torturing this cat for hours trying to get him to confess to eating my cheese. He kept denying it. Luckily, after several hours of dunking him in freezing water, threatening him with dobermans, and other "intensive techniques," he broke. He admitted not only that he ate the cheese, but that he was part of a conspiracy with the other three cats. Thankfully, now, my cheese is safer, and so is the world.For more expert information on torture, I recommend: www.whitehouse.gov

Cafferty puts Blacks in their place...

I hope everyone caught the Situation Room yesterday. Cafferty really let into Black people.

Let's go to New York, Jack Cafferty with the Cafferty File.

CAFFERTY: NAACP president Bruce Gordon says that despite his objections to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, he would listen to calls for help from Washington. The question we asked is how can African Americans help the United States end the war in Iraq?

Richard, "Blacks could confront the administration with the need to face reality and confront them and confront them and confront them. It may not make an impact on the Alice-In-Wonderland leaders of our government, but it would be nice to see some backbone, some consistent standing up to them, unlike most of our Congress.

Ger in Seaside, California, "They can't. This is our problem. I don't see how they can do anything but make it worse for themselves and I'm sure Black people will let their government know that they disprove of the idea." Paul writes, "Every warm body in the trench will help stabilize the situation. This is a good opportunity for George Bush to end the era of unilateralism and cowboy diplomacy. He should ask for and accept the assistance. Every non-U.S. soldier over there decreases the odds of our family members getting killed."

Eric in Chicago, "No thanks NAACP. We must look at this from their perspective. What's their incentive? Obviously it's more than just a peaceful world as they have passed on promoting peace on multiple occasions. Blacks being such a self-serving people, maybe we should dig a bit deeper before we decide to accept the offer."

James in Fresno writes my favorite, "What say we send a few busloads of Blacks to Baghdad? I can't think of a better way to help the Iraqis realize that there are indeed things less tolerable than the presence of American troops."

And John in Madison, Wisconsin, "It's about time. Blacks could teach al Qaeda how to surrender.:

If you didn't see your e-mail here you can go to CNN.com/CaffertyFile and read more of these online, Wolf.

BLITZER: See you in New York tomorrow, Jack. Thanks very much, Jack Cafferty. Let's find out what's coming up at the top of the top of the hour. Paula's standing by. Hi Paula.

PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Hi Wolf, Jack didn't enjoy those last two e-mails at all, did he?

BLITZER: No, not at all.

ZAHN: His laughter said it all. Thank you...

If Cafferty says it, it must be true, right? I mean he's a straight-shooter, an everyman, and an insightful journalist who can cut through the newspeak.

I should mention that I adapted the above transcript and replaced the word "France" with "NAACP" and French with "Black." Sorry, Jack, it was just so easy to do, sort of like your form of commentary.

Kids at work

Here is the church:(Federal Reserve)

Here was the steeple:

Open the doors, and here are the people (and here they remain):

SHEK YAN, China As workers poured out of factories into the evening sunlight, Samuel Wong trolled the streets of an industrial zone here in a minivan, looking for the garment factory he had come to spy on. In the jargon of the manufacturing business, Wong is known as a social compliance auditor. But sweatshop snoop might be a better description. Wong works for American and European companies that buy shoes, clothing and toys from Asian factories and that want an unvarnished view of what happens behind their heavily guarded gates - a job that the Chinese government, preoccupied with maintaining economic growth, has neither the will nor the resources to pursue.

Source: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/09/15/business/inspect.php

Friday cat blogging from the Left Paw Society

My three-month fast is over...

In commemoration of 9.11, I haven't eaten or blogged for months. I have come to the conclusion that only extreme and visceral reactions to the event are worthwhile, while logic and measured action can only appease the terrorists.

It is now 9.12 and I can eat and blog again, but I will never forget the pain and suffering and fear I am supposed to feel to be a true American. 9.11 was a tragedy and we should keep it that way.

Friday Cat Blogging from the Left Paw Society

Well, it's been a long year. My mother passed away two weeks ago after a long bout with cancer and blogging has been far from my priorities recently with family, work and other bits of life taking precedent over bloggerly matters.

I've been meaning to write about my mother, an amazingly talented person, and one of the purest good souls. I just don't feel like like writing it right now. Anyway, you know: I owe you much, mom, and so do many more whose lives you've touched. I leave it at that until I can find an elegant way to say it.

So, here is a shot of Biscuit looking at the moon.

Friday Cat Blogging from the Left Paw Society

Deux chats endormis.

Wall Street Loves America

Well, actually, it doesn't. I can't blog much, but I had to put this in here for future reference:

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2006/07/post911_option_.html

Here's the story. I hope to be back to blogginsville soon.

The WSJ continues its recent habit of burying killer stories in the under read Saturday edition. This week's bombshell has to do with post 9/11 earnings grants:

"On Sept. 21, 2001, rescuers dug through the smoldering remains of the World Trade Center. Across town, families buried two firefighters found a week earlier. At Fort Drum, on the edge of New York's Adirondacks, soldiers readied for deployment halfway across the world.

Boards of directors of scores of American companies were also busy that day. They handed out millions of bargain-priced stock options to their top executives.

The terrorist attack shut the U.S. stock market for days. When it reopened Sept. 17, stocks skidded more than 14% over five days, in the worst full week for the Dow Jones Industrial Average since Germany invaded France in May 1940. But for recipients of options, the lower their company's stock price when options are awarded the better, since the options grant a right to buy shares at that price for years to come. The grants set recipients up for millions of dollars in profit if the shares recovered.

A Wall Street Journal analysis shows how some companies rushed, amid the post-9/11 stock-market decline, to give executives especially valuable options. A review of Standard & Poor's ExecuComp data for 1,800 leading companies indicates that from Sept. 17, 2001, through the end of the month, 511 top executives at 186 of these companies got stock-option grants. The number who received grants was 2.6 times as many as in the same stretch of September in 2000, and more than twice as many as in the like period in any other year between 1999 and 2003.

Ninety-one companies that didn't regularly grant stock options in September did so in the first two weeks of trading after the terror attack. Their grants were concentrated around Sept. 21, when the market reached its post-attack low. They were worth about $325 million when granted, based on a standard method of valuing stock options."

What makes this so pathetic is that corporate executives could have stepped up AND BOUGHT STOCKS IN THE OPEN MARKET if they believed they were so cheap. It would have been reassuring to a nation to see the leaders of industry voting with their own dollars. It might have made the subsequent economic slow down and period of tense aftermath less painful.>

Instead, these weasels decided to loot the treasury at the first opportunity. America was smouldering, the WTC lay in ruins, and this group of classless pigs decided it was time to pocket some cash.

I'm going to take it a step further: These assclown executives are unAmerican. They are not Patriots, they are not model citizens -- they are merely a pathetic group of opportunistic whores who might as well hang outside the Holland Tunnel looking for a quick buck (although that would involve risk and work, something they have shown a distinct aversion to).

In 1929, when the stock market crashed, JP Morgan (and others) stepped in. They bought stock with their own dollars, they saved Wall Street. Oh, and they were rewarded for it -- both monetarily, and in the history books.

What the more recent group of execs did is probably legal. It certainly isn't ethical, and it reveals them to be "lacking in moral turpitude rectitude." I wonder if there's a morals clause in any of their employment contracts.

What a pathetic group of weasels. Brain cancer is too good for these shitheads. They -- and their lapdog Boards of Directors -- should all be fired.

Friday Night Ladybug Blogging

We took a hike up Icehouse Canyon last week. It was hot, humid and the bugs were hungry. It was also ladybug mating season. By the time I could get a few shots, I was covered in them. I like ladybugs, but, well, that's about as far as it goes. No great pictures, but it made for some fun photoshopping as in the second picture.

Friday Cat Blogging from the Left Paw Society

Geoportail / Geoportal

The French government just rolled out it's new geo-portal similar to Google Earth. The servers are getting hit hard right now, so I can't comment on the service yet, but I'm going to go ahead and link to it. (IGN, je t'aime moi non plus.)

Le voilà: http://www.geoportail.fr/index.php?event=DisplayAccueilVisu

And my predictions...

France 2-Brésil 1

Resource Nationalism

The Financial Times reports today on a document received from the U.S. Military:

Future supplies of oil from Latin America are at risk because of the spread of resource nationalism, a study by the US military that reflects growing concerns in the US administration over energy security has found.

An internal report prepared by the US military’s Southern Command and obtained by the Financial Times follows a recent US congressional investigation that warned of the US’s vulnerability to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s repeated threats to “cut off” oil shipments to the US.

The report itself notes that "A re-emergence of state control in the energy sector will likely increase inefficiencies and, beyond an increase in short-term profits, will hamper efforts to increase long-term supplies and production..."

Ah, those darn increased inefficiencies. I'm assuming this means that Venezuela is increasing its taxes from next to nothing to twice next to nothing. I'm assuming that democratic politics which place local needs above those of Barbies and Commando-Wannabes tooling around in SUVs is also an inefficiency.

Question to readers: Has anybody been to the Moonie Ranch in Paraguay? 1.5 Million acres. Maybe Neil Bush is there working on his lobbying skills.

Racism

The Economist has its new edition out with this on the cover:









As Jérôme à Paris says, "...now that they are giving it the legitimacy of their front page, with the usual French bashing (calling the young rioters of last November "Muslims" is simply plain false, and the image of the Eiffel tower is anything but subtle), expect more hand-wringing about Europe's seeming unability to deal with its own problems"

Indeed, the article is full of what can only be called propaganda. To starting with, as Jérôme notes, the not so subtle cover. What exactly are they trying to imply? Is France too Muslim? Are the Muslims taking over?

The article has a telling graphic:
(thanks to eurotrib.com for the image)

Really, now, "Where they are"! That's right. You can't be European and Muslim. I'm glad that's all cleared up.

Friday Cat Blogging from the LPS (Left Paw Society)

Yes, Master. Yes.

As you've probably noticed during your daily scroll through the headlines, the House failed to renew the Voting Rights Act yesterday because a few Republicans objected to the act's "singling out" Southern states who have a history of racism. No doubt, these Republicans feel the South does not have a history of racism but rather a heritage:

"The amendment's backers say the requirement unfairly singles out and holds accountable nine states that practiced racist voting policies decades ago, based on 1964 voter turnout data: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia." [Source]

A Republican, either oblivious or opposed to history added,

"I don't think we have racial bias in Texas anymore." [Rep. John Carter, R-Round Rock.]

That's right. It's the "End of History." Those things aren't happening anymore.

Well, actually, they are. Take for example Georgia's on-going push to get a voter ID for which the courts handslapped them last year (from the WaPo: "Voter ID law overturned, Georgia can no longer charge for access to Nov. 8 election..."). Everyone knows about the inaccurate list of "felons" that prevented many people without any previous convictions from voting in 2000. Similarly, in 2004, the RNC came up with a brilliant plan to keep African American votes from counting in the last election. Greg Palast explains:

"Here’s how the scheme worked: The RNC mailed these voters letters in envelopes marked, “Do not forward”, to be returned to the sender. These letters were mailed to servicemen and women, some stationed overseas, to their US home addresses. The letters then returned to the Bush-Cheney campaign as “undeliverable.”

The lists of soldiers of “undeliverable” letters were transmitted from state headquarters, in this case Florida, to the RNC in Washington. The party could then challenge the voters’ registration and thereby prevent their absentee ballots being counted." [Source]

And, of course, I'm not even going into Ohio.

This should be our national shame. We should be outraged. Yet the VRA, like affirmative action, like good public schools, like tax breaks for the wealthy--like so many things--is one of America's many blind spots to its own racial and classist history. Here's a picture I took at the Atlanta airport a few weeks ago (yes, June 2006). What do you think?


Is it racist? Think it's funny? I think it is sad, and, well, it pretty much sums up where we are to me: we have this system, it's racist, yet we stare at it with a sense of irony which allow us to process it and move on. That's too bad, because it goes much deeper than all of this, back to the core of our "national character." And this brings me to something Digby wrote (and I responded to) a few months ago.

Digby

We seem to have a little glitch in our national psyche that won't go away. It isn't just southern anymore. The misadventure of the last five years has been run by a southern dominant political party, but its architects were elite, cosmopolitan intellectuals. This is an American problem and we are going to have to get rid of it if this country is going to survive.

I responded to Digby's post this way:

I couldn't agree more. We are still paying the price for the Missouri Compromise and for the failed Reconstruction period after the Civil War. This is true for race relations, as Katrina and its aftermath amply prove, and, just as importantly, it is true for class relations.

I am not a Civil War historian, but I am from the South and lived in the South for a long time before coming to L.A. One thing I know about red states is that they are a model of colonialism and extraction, seeking to suck out the fruits of natural resources and human labor where they can.

If the most efficient means of labor/resource extraction means classifying a group of people as sub-human, then that is the obvious path. If that becomes socially or politically unacceptable, then other means become necessary. The South's loss in the civil war was as much a social conversion as it was a resource failure. In fact, it is a myth to think that the South lost because it did not have industry. The South lost because people gave up. If the average Southerner in 1864 really believed in slavery and that the slave-owner society was really helping the average citizen, then the South, in 1866 or 1867, would have resembled Iraq in 2006--there would have been widespread rebellion, uprising, guerilla war. This did not happen. Why? The answer if of course complicated, but, in part, it is because many, many white people were oppressed by the upper-class land owners. These whites, while having many more benefits than slaves, obviously, understood that the system was working against them. It was not their war to begin with. How else does one explain the huge desertion rates in the Southern army? (I know, I'm generalizing.)

To get back to my point, and perhaps yours, something changed during reconstruction. As soon as Blacks had "equal" status, they could become the boogeyman for Whites. White Elites exploited this to their full advantage and began to mythologize racism and the "Golden Age of the Old South" through groups such as the KKK --and the Southern Democrats.

The racist mythology allowed poor Whites and rich Whites to find a common ground at the beginning of the 20th century, and at the present. The Republican party, as everyone knows, constantly summons this racist mythology through hint and allusion by nominating racist judges on MLK's birthday, by avoiding speaking to the NAACP, through talk radio and TV pundits. And this is where it gets dangerous, as D. Dneiwert, among others in the blogosphere, points out. The racist myth is so pervasive, so easy to tap into, and so powerful (because its fallacies seem to explain so many things), that a word here, an image there, and our Mass Media has fed into and propagated a racist creed. It is a creed that is false, but powerful because it imbues the believer with power, with an impression of superiority, and this "superiority" crosses class lines, and that is the ultimate scam.

So it isn't just Southern (it never was, it was just more so), and it isn't just race. I have lived abroad, and I will say that America is one of the most racist places I know. Racsim is a huge, huge problem. That said, I feel that it is the ability of the myth, through racism, to elide over class issues that is causing us problems today. It isn't that the "South" has taken over; it is that the extractors, those adept at mining the land and its humans, have come into power. Their belief system in 1860, like now, was exploitation (of blacks and whites), elitism, and expansion. The extractors, now as then, are constantly seeking new territories and peoples at the lowest cost. It is their way of hiding the true cost of their (and our) wealth.

They know that the weath of the here and now almost always comes at the price of people and land. They just don't care.

Look at how the Republican leadership frolics in New York and L.A., supposedly speaking for the "common man", while, in reality, the red-states they represent are among the poorest regions of the country. Though to a lesser degree, Kansas and South Dakota are to America what Africa and South America are to the "developed" world.

This is the Brand America they have created; its purveyors are Fox News and Malkin and Bush. They are all racists, they are all elitists, and they just don't care. The only hope is not it some PC version of eliminating racism, but in re-forming the instutions that purvey the racism and exploitation of Americans, namely government, big business and the media.

Whoever the next president may be, the only real hope is in "demolishing" large swaths of the federal government, and by that, I don't mean getting rid of it, but re-doing it. The Republican party has infiltrated every nook and cranny of government and will hold on to those positions no matter what. The only way to get rid of them is to litterally re-invent the departments from the ground up, removing, where possible, the revolving doors, promoting career officers, etc. Re-organize is perhaps the best term, but there will need to be some creative destruction before the demons of the Republican party, which are overwhelmingly the demons of the Civil War and the Reconstruction, are sufficiently reduced, removed, or whatever.

I do not want to absolve the Democrats in this. They carry a huge blame historically in promoting racsim and exploitation, but, presently, they are simply a weak, rudderless party. The Republicans are, and they know it, up to something far more dangerous and corrupt. It will take an earnest Reconstruction of government to repair what the Republicans have done and continue to do and to make progress in alleviating the burdens of our national demons.

So ended my diatribe and I apologize for quoting myself at such length, but, until there is some sort of reconstruction of government and the social order so as to actually understand and create solidarity with people rather than the interchangeable poles of disdain and pity, then we should be taking note. The VRA is about understanding that voting is not as easy for some as it is for others. Yet even the Voting Rights Act is only a palliative, an advil offered in lieu of real medical intervention: Heck, in most countries people vote on a Saturday or a Sunday, or they make it a national holiday. Now that would be fair to working people of every race and class. That would be an attempt to put all citizens on a more equal footing.

For good and bad (mostly bad), part of the American dream is a dream of isolation. Isolation from religious persecution, isolation in our cars, isolation in our suburbs. Part of us has thrived on being separate and our economy has grown out of this, our physical and social space has grown out of this. We're partially blind to it, and, yes, Southerners can be even more blind, as the above picture shows. And if Southerners are not somewhat blinded by their own history, why do they continue to portray themselves (oops--ourselves--I am from Georgia) as heroes rather than insurrectionists? Take a look at this tribute to American Insurgents below:

I suppose it is OK to dedicate a plaque to the POW of the Civil War, but perhaps they should mention all those other millions of prisoners that tilled the fields, picked the cotten, ironed the clothes, washed the dishes, and got whipped because they said they thought they were as good as Whites.

So it is racist to say "Blacks" are inferior or "Mexicans are inferior." And it is just as racist to say that racism is over and done with because it purposefully removes the debate about race and class in the U.S. Until there are no more memorials like this then I will assume that the South still has a few "issues."