AAC Blog
By BAR executive editor Glen Ford
"Dr. King and Obama represent opposing moral and political camps."
The two days touch: Dr. Martin Luther King's Birthday observance and Barack Obama's presidential inauguration, January 19 and 20, respectively. To many, the juxtaposition is self-evident confirmation of the intersection of the two men's missions on Earth. Dr. King's journey, which ended with his murder, and Obama's ascent to the presidency, are seen to merge as the dates approach to form a perfect, tragic-glorious symmetry - a 48-hour revelation.
The coincidence of the calendar makes for good copy and grand sermons, but in fact reveals a great moral and political dissonance. It is true that there could have been no Obama presidency had Dr. King and the movement he sprang from not existed, but that simple fact of history does not amount to a King benediction from the grave for Obama's moral character and political policies. Indeed, Dr. King's life and words are indelible evidence that he and Obama represent opposing moral and political camps.
Tens of millions of African Americans - who did not choose the little-known Obama to be their champion, but supported him near-universally at the polls once his candidacy had been made "viable" - will celebrate vicarious attainment of power when Obama is sworn in. Yet when confronted on Obama's political agenda, enough of which has been put in motion and otherwise made plain since Election Day, few Black Obama supporters can mount a cogent defense. "Better than McCain" doesn't cut it, anymore.
"Few Black Obama supporters can mount a cogent defense of his positions."
When the New York Times describes the emerging Obama administration as "center-right," there is not much for an honest progressive to defend - and most African Americans are progressive on economic issues and questions of war and peace. Beyond a ritual counting of the president-elect's African American appointees, most African Americans seem oblivious to the political nature of his Cabinet, his policy pronouncements and shameful silences. More likely, they pretend to be oblivious so as not to lose that once-in-a-lifetime feeling that happened when the Black man won.
Blacks who have taken on the task of defending Obama, often wind up revealing themselves as persons of little moral or political substance, in the process. New York's Dr. Leonard Jeffries is one of the more prominent Obamists, a self-styled Pan-Africanist. In my second debate involving Jeffries, in Baltimore, December 20 (the first was the week before, in Harlem), he repeated his mantra, that Blacks should "study Obama-ology." I asked him to define this area of study. "Obama-ology," said Jeffries, visibly exasperated by my questioning of the obvious, "is the study of Obama. How he raised so much money...how he used the Internet...."
Dr. Jeffries' response revealed his position to have no political or moral content. He genuflected before Obama because the candidate raised hundreds of millions of dollars (from whom and in return for what?) and created an Internet network (to what end, beyond Election Day?). Most importantly, Obama was a hero because he won. What else is there to know or say?
"None of the Obamites were even minimally capable of defending their guy's record."
At the Harlem debate, an Obama defender kept shouting into her mic, "Obama won! Black people have spoken!" - as if any discussion of his political positions was extraneous, or racially subversive, on its face. The woman was a leader of the group that organized the debate, but like others in her organization clearly did not really want a debate. None of the Obamites were even minimally capable of defending their guy's record on the bailout, his retention of George Bush's defense secretary and plans to expand U.S. military manpower, his positioning of bankers at the controls of his new administration's economic machinery, his support for AFRICOM, his key advisors' advocacy of "humanitarian" military intervention - on not one point did the Obama camp offer anything that could reasonably be called a defense, coherent or otherwise.
It is not simply that the Obamites failed to muster a defense in Harlem or Baltimore or other venues; admittedly, it is difficult to defend the indefensible. What is most shocking - maddening - is their rejection of any political or moral standard for evaluating the soon-to-be Black president. All that remains is the fact of Obama's power and the delusion that Blacks somehow share in that power. There is no thought of speaking Truth to Power, and certainly no place for a moral compass in such a valueless void.
We can understand, then, how such people would imagine Obama and Dr. King to be soul mates. The fact that one of these men fought his whole life against the forces of militarism and economic exploitation, while the other empowers, and is empowered by, bankers and militarists, does not register on their anaesthetized moral and political sensors.
"There is no thought of speaking Truth to Power, and certainly no place for a moral compass."
If the Obamites had more presence of mind, they would avoid comparisons with Dr. King, which can only redound to Obama's great detriment. King's break with his onetime ally, President Lyndon Johnson, set the standard for both political and moral behavior. When it became clear that the War on Poverty was doomed by the war in Vietnam, which acted "like some demonic destructive suction tube," devouring all available resources, King publicly declared against the war. In doing so, he severed what had been the most productive relationship between an American president and a Black leader in U.S. history. But the war gave him no choice, since military expenditures made "rehabilitation" of the American poor impossible. Both morality and politics led to the same conclusion: the Movement could not coexist with war.
The lesson is directly applicable today, but Americans, Black and white, find it difficult to recognize the characters. Obama is Lyndon Johnson. National revitalization, including redress of historical African American grievances, is impossible unless military expenditures are dramatically reduced. But Obama is committed to putting 100,000 new pairs of Marine and Army "boots on the ground," an expanded war in Afghanistan/Pakistan, a beefed up AFRICOM, and a generally bigger U.S. military footprint on the planet. This, in the midst of global economic collapse.
Dr. King would find creative ways to confront President Obama's militarism, and to actively resist further diversion of public wealth to the bankers. Were he to survey the current political scene, King would be most impressed, not with the Obamas party plans for the night after his birthday, but with the way that a daughter of Georgia salvaged Black America's moral reputation at the beginning of Israel's assault on Gaza.
"Not all African Americans have morphed into warmongering clones of Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice."
Cynthia McKinney's attempted voyage of solidarity with the besieged people of Gaza on the medical relief boat Dignity, rammed and almost sunk by Israeli warships, reminds the world that not all African Americans have morphed into warmongering clones of Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. Thanks to the presence of the former Georgia congresswoman and Green Party presidential candidate on the mission, millions of Arabs have been made aware of a different Black America, one that is not silent, like Barack Obama, in the face of a purposely inflicted human rights catastrophe.
Cynthia McKinney is Black America's moral emissary to the world. She exemplifies the Black America that consistently opposes U.S. military adventures abroad, a people that recognize organized racism when they see it, and therefore condemn Israel's treatment of Palestinians - the Black America that Martin Luther King came from.
Some of us are still in our right minds. Hopefully, most of the others will recover, sooner rather than later.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .
Comments (31)Subscribe to this comment's feed
Fantastic insight
written by Nate , January 07, 2009
Thank you again Mr. Ford.
But don't worry, Gov. Richardson will save the day!
written by Lou , January 07, 2009
Oh, I forgot, the Commerce Secretary-Elect is under federal investigation for "pay-to-play" in New Mexico, the same crime,( no doubt carried out with more class and panache), that Blago is being investigated for. When did Obama and "Team Obama" know the feds were investigating Richardson for corruption? Who did the "vetting"?
Notice how the media constantly refers to "disgraced Illinois Governor"? And he hasn't even been indicted. What about the "disgraced New Mexico Governor" who was going to lead the revival of the US economy? People are too stupid to see there's a Bill Richardson media black out or point out the hypocrisy.
If you can unravel the "mystery" of the treatment of similar "accusations" (Blago vs. Richardson) by the Democratic Party and Media, then you've unraveled the mystery of Obama. "Dr. Lou" calls it "cognitive dissonance." Take 2 aspirin and continue to read BAR and a possible cure is in sight.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123129988918059963.html
Excerpt:
"The problems with Mr. Richardson should have been evident to anyone with experience in machine-run Chicago. "Corruption is a way of life in New Mexico," says local blogger and novelist S.J. Reidhead, who maintains that the state's Democratic Party has been controlled by a corrupt machine for many decades."
p.s.
Mr. Ford, at the next gathering ask the Obamites to explain Blago v. Richardson, that should be good for more than a few laughs over cocktails. The mental gymnastics will no doubt make Karl Wallenda proud.
Terrific Reporting
written by Mitchel Cohen , January 07, 2009
Cynthia McKinney does us all proud. The protests over Israel's bombardment and invasion of Gaza, all the letters, articles, reports seem to have forced Obama out of his cone-of-silence (all you "Get Smart" fans). Glen, your reports are absolutely first-rate. Keep them coming!
- Mitchel Cohen,
Brooklyn Greens / Green Party
Reality is a m**f***ker
written by cripes , January 07, 2009
Cynthia McKinney has been for years the real standard-bearer of King's anti-war legacy and my "wasted" vote for her is the only time I have ever been proud to cast a vote in any election.
Obama's true role is to provide a front for the continuation of the bankrupt corporate economic and imperial military designs of empire.
Only a shrinking coterie of upper class african americans will continue to support or defend his regime based on their class aspirations to merge with the corporatocracy.
It's a shameful episode. We can only hope it will refute forever the naive and ahistorical delusion that merely promoting black faces in high places, without any content, policies, or principle, is not a victory, but a capitulation.
Slow down on the imagery
written by blaq , January 07, 2009
Where did you see anything about the Israeli ship nearly sinking "Dignity". I've seen reports about some ramming, but sinking....heh..yeah right.
I agree with most of what you say, but c'mon, now. Some of the things you're saying are intentionally emotionally misleading. Pls tone it down a bit.
I witnessed the Baltimore Debate Regarding Obama
written by EVJ , January 07, 2009
To be honest, I have to admit, I did vote for Obama. Not because I was seduced by his deliberate mass covert hypnosis or his neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) implemented in his speeches. I had every intention on voting for sista Cynthia, but the night before the election, I sat at my home computer and read message board after message board spewing racist comments about Obama and decided to spite the racists by voting for him. What a poor decision on my part!
Is Obama a fraud?
written by sall , January 07, 2009
Supposedly now Obama is in favor of seating Burris. LOL.
I was at the Harlem debate
written by Shawn Garcia (East Harlem, NY) , January 07, 2009
Glen like a bunch of others have already said, thank you for your efforts in presenting a left alternative voice from the black community in a time when such resources are few and far between.
I agree with Mr. Ford that the Obamists had very little POLITICAL arguments to defend their position on the POLTICAL act in the election of Barack Obama. Although I did not vote for Obama or McKinney but rather for the socialist ticket in La Riva/Puryear (www.votepsl.org), McKinney is an emissary for black america and all those on the left who are opposing US imperialism and most specifically currently with her efforts on exposing the genocide in traditional Palestine. We should all support her efforts and the efforts that are going on within the US for the people of Gaza.
And in regards to the comment by EVJ right above, I actually would argue that, yes there was of course a racist campaign set up against Mr. Obama, but the reality is that the big-business media outlets actually fought against such a campaign taking full flight, in their efforts to guarantee the democrats the vote from certain backward racist sectors of the white working class. A very interesting role is how this played out in the trade union movement, which readers should look into when they get a chance. Cause honestly if a racist campaign did go into effect and Obama was able to build a ticket that was more in the face of such opposition, I think many of us including Glen Ford would be more in defense of the electoral win.
What a brilliant piece of courageous journalism!
written by anotherLeftsista , January 07, 2009
Thanks to Bro. Glen and the entire staff of BAR!
I also attended both "debates" in Harlem and Baltimore; it was pitiful, to say the least.
Bro. Glen, my check is in the mail!
sall- "Is Obama a Fraud?"
written by Lou , January 07, 2009
No sall, just a weak-knee, compliant, confused knee-grow who made a Faustian pact.
Check out the S.F. Chronicle, the dust-up with Sen. Feinstein over the CIA appointment has to do with "Team Obama" essentially not kissing her ring, read the article, absolutely Reality TV writ large.
Excerpt:
"One high-level Democrat with strong ties to Feinstein, who spoke on condition of anonymity, characterized the senator's statements on Panetta this week as 'a show of strength, a brush-back pitch, from a powerful chair who can be helpful or hurtful" to Obama.
"She feels strongly about protocol," Feinstein's friend said. "As chair of the Intelligence Committee, she expected a courtesy call, especially if it was going to be outside the norm."
"If she did not respond with a show of strength, she'd be seen as weak," the insider said. "This is not the time for weak leaders. And she is not the kind of wallflower that would simply turn the other cheek with this kind of offense."
sall, everybody's got "big ones" now that Boy Wonder is in office, waxing melliflously. What's so sad is that he is blowing an opportunity to be historic,-- truly presidential-- because of rank cowardice and absence of principles. The world anticipated, hope and change, with which comes courage and resolve, instead it ends up with was a tabla rasa "punk-boy." You have to laugh at some of this stuff because it's otherwise depressing.
Sorry if I offended anyone here, "who feels strongly about protocol."
"And the beat goes on, the beat goes on.."
written by Lou , January 07, 2009
Courtesy of the Wall St. Journal:
"The main business tax cuts proposed by President-elect Barack Obama are likely to be a windfall for two industries particularly tied to the current economic meltdown: Wall Street investment banks and home builders.
Under the proposal being crafted by the incoming Obama administration and congressional Democrats, companies would be able to use their so-called tax losses to offset taxable U.S. profits earned in the past five years.
That tax cut would be particularly helpful to industries that were flying high for the past several years, but now aren't expected to report much profit for the foreseeable future -- such as Wall Street firms, home builders and construction companies.
The same break was included in a stimulus package enacted in 2002, and home builders had lobbied Congress for a nearly identical tax break last year -- estimated to cost $6.1 billion -- ultimately without success.
"I think it's ridiculous," said Dean Baker, an economist and co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. "It's rewarding the people who messed up."
Treasury last year granted other tax benefits to banks hurting from losses realized on their loan portfolio, allowing them to use those losses more quickly than currently permitted."
Still waiting for the that home-owner bailout package? How long will the Richardson media black out last? And given that Richardson ACTUALLY RECEIVED $$ isn't his conduct MORE legally suspect than Gov.Rob's "talking/political speech?" What is more "criminal" making bold, brash and crude demands that went unanswered or being "polished" and actually getting the benjamins? It's okay to be a crook, just do it with taste like Madoff or Richardson. LOL Stay tuned, Reality TV fans, as the American Dilemma unfolds. It will be poetic if it's Richardson and not Rob that gets indicted.
"the beat goes on, the beat goes on
Drums keep pounding a rhythm to the brain
La de da de de, la de da de da"
Great article Glen...
written by ks , January 07, 2009
"Defending the indefensible" is about right. As such, don't expect anything else than slogans (Obamaology) and othet mush minded nonsense.
It's About Class
written by Der Kosmonaut , January 07, 2009
I have been arguing and telling all of my white progressive friends here in Europe and Canada that they should expect to be disappointed in a year's time. It's remarkable how so many progressive whites think that Obama's election is some huge triumph against reactionary politics. Granted, I had no illusions that Obama would be a capitalist President. All heads of states and governments in the West are pro-capitalist. That's no wonder. However, it never accrued to me that Obama would assemble another reactionary government. Ever since his AIPAC speech last summer, I knew he was going to be bad news. As for the Blacks that have decided to move to Walt Disney's Celebration USA,it reflects less on their moral and political fibre than it does on 30 years of far-right wing racist politics. Let's face it, Reagan and Bush 41 overturned the Civil Rights gains. Since 1982, Black America has been defeated. Given nearly 30 years of political and social defeat, it should come as no wonder that the older Black intelligentsia have come to welcome Obama's election as the arrival of the second coming of Christ or having reached the promised land at last. One last point. What Obama's victory signifies is that after a century of Booker T. Washington's Atlanta Compromise, the Black Bourgeoisie have finally been accepted into America's ruling class. This is also consistent with Franz Fanon's prediction in his "Black Skin White Masks" study. He envisioned a future in the US when the Black man and white man would shake each other's hand as equals. Something he correctly predicted would never occur in France. The tiny but rich Black capitalist class is now equal socially, economically and politically with the white capitalist class. For the rest of us Black, Latino, Asian and white, we will face poverty and degradation as the capitalists continue to destroy the economy, environment and march towards a serious world war. In essence, Obama's election confirms the long held Marxist theorem that class is the central divide in capitalist society, not race.
Equal?
written by Six Five Son of a Slave , January 07, 2009
Great article, Bro. Ford!!! I am glad you, Bro Dhoruba and others are giving the info we need.
As far as any Afrikan petty bourgeoisie being "equal" to whites, that will NEVER happen. Imperialism, capitalism, whatever you want to call it stand for white supremacy, period. Being "allowed" to serve white sumpremacist interests doesn't mean that "they are letting you in the club". Malcolm talked about the "house negro". And, we all know that, even in the house, the negro had no power. Anywhere in the world you see a Black man in a power position there is ALWAYS going to be a white man behind him(or her) rubbing his hands and counting the loot(with the exception of Mugabe and Aristode).
I agree "classism" plays into the issue, but that is just one aspect of of white supremacy or Imperialism.
I thought
written by gedlo , January 07, 2009
that Obama's attempt to link himself to MLK was hypocrisy of the highest order. BO's positions on tort reform, the Patriot Act, funding for the Iraq War, expansion of the war in Afghanistan, Zionist terror, the Wall Street theft, etc. would have sickened MLK. We won't even discuss what Malcolm would have said.
Excellent post!
written by Hope Springs , January 07, 2009
Thank you for a dose of sanity in a world that increasingly resembles nothing more than a sickening thud. (And thanks to Arthur Silber for linking here in his blog). I voted for Cynthia McKinney and would gladly do so again. I fear that Obama and his uncritical supporters are intended to be the tools used by the ruling elite to accomplish the things even Bush/Cheney couldn't get away with: Martial law, detention camps, etc. Bleak times!
From symbolic to structural change
written by Courtenay Barnett , January 07, 2009
The core point is that a person visibly of African heritage being elected President of the United States of America is a "symbolic" step forward. However, "symbolic" change has to bear reference to tangible issues of:-
1. Militarism.
2. International terms of trade and the US dollar as the world's reserve currency.
3. The "oil" geo-strategic objectives of the US in Iraq and Afghanistan.
4. The proportionate allocation of the US GNP between social and infrasructural needs vis-a-vis the levels of allocations in billions to corporate interests.
These are some of the macro considerations that feed into the politico-economic realities that question American policies under any President ( colour asisde) and require a need for structural changes ( to employ Obama's choice of word "change") that are structurally signicant to represent real "change" for the American public's and the world's good.
fools
written by Leroy , January 07, 2009
The people that wrote this ought to get off crack or whatever they're smoking and Gedlo get a job. The reality is Mckinney like Sharpton will do anything for publicity and she can't do it because of her looks. Again why don't you editors talk about DARFUR, Haiti, AIDS, housing and Burris being lynched, who cares about these Arabs who have given us high gas prices
Oblivious or just plain ignorant?
written by beverly , January 07, 2009
The average person, regardless of racial category, is dumb as dirt when it comes knowledge of the historical and political scenes. Regardless of what school attended, their history/govt/civics/etc education sucked. Information from the mass media is no better - like school, one gets the company line, i.e., what govt and powers that run it want you to believe. This includes people overseas as evidenced by the rock star reception Obama gets from across the pond. Foreign outlets such as the BBC toe the govt/powers that run it line in news reporting almost as much as their state side brethren.
Thus, we get a nation of oblivious ignoramuses (including the highly educated), so brainwashed and conditioned by mush, er, mass media that they will not believe anything unless it comes from CNN, Fox, Oprah, et. al. For black people, add to the mix the chronic malady of ethnoitis, blind adoration to any black face in a high place. Ethnoitis also causes one to lose all critical thinking and common sense capabilities.
As for voting for Obama to spite racists, why bother? During the campaign, Obama ran as far and fast as he could from any so-called 'black issue.' He joined Wright's church because it was a good career move (mega black church where movers, shakers, and a massive black voting bloc hang) and jumped ship when it was politically expedient. Little that Obama has proposed (tax cuts for business, increased military action)will help most black Joe and Janes who need jobs,housing,foreclosure/mortgage relief, and healthcare free of bureaucratic red tape. Who the hell should give a crap if the man was/is being attacked by racists? He would probably side with the freaking racists over aligning himself with any so-called black issue anyway.
Cripes writes that only a shrinking coterie of upper class blacks will continue to defend/support Obama's reign. I doubt the coterie will shrink very much and it will contain not only the upper class but the middle and lower ends as well. Ignorance is bliss and ethnoitis is a powerful thing. Unless there is a mother of all Obama scandals where the man does a Bill Clinton and fesses up on TV, forget about him losing many of his adoring flock.
Obama's black face will be Kryptonite against any criticism of his actions and inactions. Man oh man, did the polticial players luck out big time with the discovery of this 'Superman' stooge.
Right On Beverly!!!
written by Bernard , January 07, 2009
Beverly you hit the nail right down to the center of the earth. The only thing I would add is that for every 6 white voters that didn't vote for Obama due to racism, 2 voted for him for the equally racist idea that he is different and better than "those other blacks" tainted by the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. An additional 2 whites voted for him because he was the democratic nominee and they decided to forego their own racism and vote for him anyway since he is not a Bush or Clinton.
This is the sad state of our electoral system, and sadder that black folks fell for the "we don't know what the future holds" line from Oprah Winfrey and the crying on CNN "Obama is no fairy-tale" Donna Brazile.
Addendum
written by Bernard , January 08, 2009
Within that "6 white voters that didn't vote for Obama due to racism", 4 were really really racist and 2 were PUMA-democrats who saw that he was an inexperienced empty suit being marketed like crazy by the likes of MSN and CNN.
If only 3-5% of AAs can think critically, the future looks bleak
written by Lou , January 08, 2009
Beverly I recall you (and others) repeatedly saying there was no difference between Obama and McCain and why defend him from the racists. If there were/are differences between them they are fading rapidly.
Leroy, BAR does talk about the other issues you mentioned; and you may not be a fan of the "Arabs" but you can't be oblivous to how the Elites and the "Complex" are using the WOT to terrorize the planet, and impacting the lives of people whether Arab/Muslim, African, Asian, or American. Saying you don't care is like someone saying they don't care about Israel, which I don't, but clearly how Israel acts impacts the entire world, making it, and especially the US, unsafer. So do I care about the "Biblical Israel" and consider it "special?" Hell no, but I'd have to be brain-dead to believe it doesn't impacts my (our) lives.
As far as criticizing Sharpton, keep in mind he's a media creation as much as an "opportunist" as you might refer to him. Clearly there are other credible Black leaders our there, but Brokaw, Lauer, Hannity and Anderson Cooper won't stick a microphone in their face. You need to specify how and where the same opportunism can be applied to McKinney? I haven't seen it. As to both I feel strongly about saying this, AT LEAST THEY STAND FOR SOMETHING, SOME PRINCIPLE(s), the same cannot be said for Obama.
As far as the Black elites and managerial class or all classes of AA for that matter, "it's a wrap." They will walk off a cliff with this clown, no matter how much he lies and abuses them they'll keep coming back for more. (Like catching your mate in bed with someone else they just won't believe it). By June 09 it might be time to throw in the towel and shift to survival mode and let them absorb the psychological shock and learn to fend for themselves.
Even people in my community I usually respect are hyping "Inaugaration" festivities; I'm sure all the respectable Negroes will be there grinning ear to ear.
I will be celebrating his inaugaration by flushing my toilet to symbolize where the future is headed, where "hope" and "change" has went.
Leroy,
written by gedlo , January 08, 2009
Just go back to Aipac. I can't hear you!!!
Leroy's back and sure not black
written by Tim , January 08, 2009
It's obvious "Leroy" is still getting those AIPAC checks and is disturbed that black activists are aware and in solidarity with the Palestinian people and against the apartheid policies of Israel. His attempts at fostering ignorant and racist attitudes towards arabs are self-evident. And calling brother Ford and others crack smokers, telling others to 'get a job' are typical racist insults used by typical college rebublicans against blacks. Leroy, when you look in the mirror, do you see the face of a pig?
ps There are no oil wells in Palestine jacka**
A beautiful article
written by Kera , January 08, 2009
Mr. Ford,
I always feel a profound agreement with your essays, and thank you so much for writing them. Just this past Monday, I heard an individual at my church make the same kind of statement you rightly criticized, i.e., that God somehow divinely ordained Obama's inauguration to coincide with MLK's birthday. I'm beyond speechless when I hear these comments coming out of black people's mouths, because I think surely they should know better. Yet, that obliviousness you spoke of is unbelievably powerful, and I won't be surprised if it never wears off, regardless of what Obama does.
With respect to Cynthia McKinney: my Lord. She is a finely polished and faceted jewel of principle, truth, dignity, decency, courage, morality and so much more. As a black woman who voted for her, I am so grateful for her public service. She is a light that too many Americans lack the eyes to see, and a peerless trumpet for truth and justice that too many lack the ears to hear. I pray that God blesses her abundantly, in all that she does, and thank her from the bottom of my heart for tirelessly and unceasingly representing what is best in the human spirit.
P.S. You brought unbelievable depth and substance to the Great Debates, Brother Ford. When others were ignoring the real questions and the overall task at hand, your clarity, insight and eloquence anchored the truth, and made it, at the last, poignant and powerfully unescapable.
Nobody Knew
written by Ind , January 08, 2009
Bottom line. People knew little to nothing about Barack Obama when he entered onto the platform. In fact, there's an article out there from 2007 by NY Daily News where the majority of blacks supported Hillary Clinton in her bid for the White House. Go into 2008 around MLK Day, something comes out about Hillary supporting this Goldwater guy and blacks are suddenly jumping ship over to Obama. Next thing you know, Obama is the greatest thing since MLK. Sadly, there was nothing to back up this claim in why Obama was like MLK.
And black media was worse. All spent many issues glorifying over the first black president, they rarely to none gave any attention to what Obama had to offer to blacks in America. And then we were stuck with a sloppy CNN piece on how blacks live in a country where its people continue to be oppressed. I wonder this time will attention be given to the recent killing of the innocent 22-year-old black male and father by transit police in San Francisco. What is being said about this and what will it take for Washington to end this brutality against our youth?
It took a lot of courage for Cynthia to go out there on a mission to confront the Israeli/Gaza conflict. Too bad you got screwed up minds who reduce this woman down to incompetent, but will trust Obama's silence.
Cynthia's moral actions vs obama's silence
written by mary , January 08, 2009
Cynthia has always taken actions for the right and moral reasons not political. Obama, who has stated "that there is only one president at a time", in his refusal to have a voice about the genocide in Gaza was able to have a voice on the Mubai(sp).
Kudos
written by Shep , January 08, 2009
Great rant, Lou, and right on point.
I'm still waiting for hard evidence
written by Lou , January 08, 2009
and been waiting for months for Obama and Dem Party supporters to explain how GWB, one, if not the, most reviled Presidents in history was given carte blanche to launch illegal wars, bankrupt the country via deregulation, gut the 4th Amendment, institute torture and kidnaping as a "state policy", spy on it's own citizens, arrest it's citizens (Jose Padilla), torture them, withhold counsel, and hold them incommunicado, and transfer trillions of dollars of wealth to his cronies, lobbyist, friends and the military/industrial complex...still waiting on Democrats or Obama supporters to explain that one to me. And why, in the face of (at minimum) 8 years of hard evidence there's a rational basis, something other than nebulous "hope" that "change" is coming? And then to add insult to injury, they have to nerve to grand-stand about Burris, when f*@king Bill Richardson was nominated for Commerce Sec by Obama while Richardson was under investigation for a COMPLETED ACT in contrast to Gov. Rob's ATTEMPTED ACT!! And needless to say, no one in the Bush Crime Syndicate will be held accountable let alone prosecuted for their crimes.
And now, after regular folks were pummeled to the ground by the GOP onslaught, not only do we have to stomach the Democrat's complicity for 8 years (or longer) we witness that when they come to power the first thing to do, after being bitch-slapped, denigrated, demonized (hated "liberals") and humiliated for 8 years is to be "bipartisan and reach across the aisle," to be timid and afraid of "over-reaching." What the F*#k was Bush and the GOP doing for the last 25 years if not "over-reaching?"
Can't yall just see the F**king Republicans returning to power and "reaching across the aisle in the spirit of bi-partisanship?" Of course you can't, even blind-supporters of Obama and the Democrats won't admit to being that stupid, or will you?
I guess I will be waiting for the next two Obama terms and then some before I hear a rational articulation of the points above, or an honest capitulation to the truth.
damn
written by s k y , January 08, 2009
that was so on point Lou...
All I have to say is that Obama is silent when they are killing Gazans abroad and silent when they are killing black men here in America (Oscar Grant R.I.P. murdered in cold blood by police).
Once again, thanks to Black Agenda Report for keeping it so real.
And Lou, it looks you're gonna be right about Burris... from news reports it looks like he's slated to get that seat..
Who cares about these arabs that gave us high gas prices?!
written by sky , January 08, 2009
who cares about these Arabs who have given us high gas prices?!?!?
yo this dude Leroy is a real dumb a$$ for saying this shi**.... the Palestinians don't have a damn thing to do with gas/oil prices... they're fu**ing starving to death while getting bombed u dumb a$$. The avg age of a Gazan: 17 years old. There are 6 people per every square meter. And they're getting bombed. The world is turning against Israel quickly even WITH the media blackout!
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On behalf of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), the nation’s oldest, largest, and most diverse civil and human rights coalition, representing over 200 national organizations, we write to share with you our goals for the 111th Congress and to urge you to join with us in working for these legislative priorities. The issues we have identified represent a path forward for this country in bringing change in all sectors—the economy, education, healthcare, criminal justice and others.
LCCR believes that these important legislative priorities are well positioned to pass in this Congress. Many of the items on our list are bills that have had bipartisan support and/or have passed one or both houses of Congress, such as SCHIP, Ledbetter, economic recovery, hate crimes, D.C. voting rights, and comprehensive immigration reform. Others, such as automatic and permanent voter registration, have emerged as crucial issues to be addressed in order to ensure fairness and access for all Americans.
We have divided our priority list into three categories: those that we believe can be passed in the first 100 days; those that we believe can pass in the first year; and those that we believe can be enacted by the end of the 111th Congress. We hope that you will support our issues, and join us in pursuing passage of these important civil rights bills.
First 100 Days
Ensure economic security: LCCR believes it is imperative for the 111th Congress to pass an economic recovery package that assists low-income individuals; protects public services; includes infrastructure and job creation provisions that contribute to the nation’s recovery; and provides for access to jobs for disadvantaged populations, including:
* Providing additional state and local fiscal relief to preserve other vital services;
* Allowing struggling homeowners to obtain relief in bankruptcy court to avert foreclosures;
* An increase in Food Stamp benefits;
* Increased funding for WIC Supplemental Funding, Commodity Supplemental Food Program, and The Emergency Food Assistance Program;
* Restoring Child Support Enforcement to prevent $2 billion in losses to children and their families over two years;
* Responding to the surge in home energy costs by increasing LIHEAP;
* Preventing or minimizing reductions in Head Start;
* Creating jobs for unemployed youth;
* School repair or maintenance, which would create 280,000 jobs; and
* Increasing Unemployment Insurance.
Protect Employees from Paycheck Discrimination: In Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, the Supreme Court reversed a well-established legal standard and severely weakened protection for pay discrimination critical for women in the workplace. In an effort to overturn the Supreme Court ruling and to help ensure that individuals subjected to unlawful pay discrimination are able to effectively assert their rights under the federal antidiscrimination laws, last year the House passed the Fair Pay Restoration Act in the 110th. However, the Senate narrowly failed to invoke cloture. With a new administration that has indicated support for the bill, we urge Congress to pass the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act/Fair Pay Restoration Act.
Combat hate crimes: In recent years, this legislation, which will strengthen federal law to combat hate crimes, has been approved by bipartisan majorities in both the House and the Senate several times. However, this measure has yet to become law. We strongly urge the 111th Congress to pass the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crime Prevention Act, to give local law enforcement officials important tools to combat violent, bias-motivated crimes – and facilitate federal investigations and prosecutions when local authorities are unwilling or unable to achieve a just result. Hate crime statutes are necessary to protect members of these groups from this most egregious form of discrimination.
Ensure health care for America’s children: Last year, SCHIP (State Children’s Health Insurance Program) passed both Houses of Congress, but support was insufficient to override President Bush’s veto. The bill that passed in 2008 included a citizen documentation requirement and excluded the legal immigrant improvements. LCCR urges Congress to pass SCHIP without citizenship documentation requirements and with the provision that will end restrictions imposed on legal immigrant children’s access to SCHIP, including a five-year waiting period. Repeal of the immigrant restrictions has a long-standing history of bipartisan support, the endorsement of the Tri-Caucus, and a history of positive votes.
Confirm new director and fully fund the Census Bureau: With the decennial census around the corner in 2010, the Census Bureau’s ramp-up, including implementation of its communications plan, hiring of its vast temporary work force, and address canvassing, will occur in 2009. The Senate must ensure that it quickly and efficiently confirms a new director for the Census Bureau. Additionally, Congress must fully fund the Census Bureau in these upcoming years in order to conduct the most accurate census in 2010, including insisting on full funding for the communications, outreach, and partnership programs targeting minority and other hard-to-count communities. These programs are critical to the ability of the Census to accurately count these important populations. Additionally, the American Community Survey, which collects the socioeconomic data upon which we all rely, must also be fully funded so that we can obtain an accurate picture our nation’s population.
First Year
Guarantee the right of employees to organize: Employees are the backbone of our nation’s economy. The sad reality is that tens of thousands of workers are routinely fired or discriminated against every year when they try to freely exercise their right to freedom of association. The right to organize is a fundamental right recognized in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and it is essential to a free and democratic society. Congress must pass the Employee Free Choice Act to restore the right of workers to organize free from employer intimidation and coercion.
Provide voting representation for D.C. residents: The right to vote for those who make and enforce laws – the antidote to “taxation without representation” – is the most important right that citizens have in any democracy. Yet D.C. residents have long been deprived of this right. While they must pay federal income taxes, register for selective service, and serve on federal juries, U.S. citizens who live in D.C. have no voice in the laws that govern these matters, or over any other federal legislation. Congress must provide D.C. residents with fair and effective representation. We therefore urge you to pass the DC Voting Rights Act to provide U.S. citizens who live in the District of Columbia with a meaningful vote in the House of Representatives.
Reauthorize the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA): Every year there are over two million juvenile arrests, over 100,000 youth under juvenile justice supervision, and many thousands more who are under the custody of the criminal justice system. There is no need to incarcerate a child for skipping school or other “status offenses.” Juvenile justice systems must do everything possible to ensure that children and youth in the justice system are treated in an age, cultural, and linguistically appropriate manner. The juvenile justice system must provide developmentally appropriate, evidenced-based services and supports. Under JJDPA, states would be required to assess and address the disproportionate contact of youth of color at key points of contact in the juvenile justice system – from arrest to detention to confinement. Most importantly, the JJDPA will help ensure fairness by making system officials more accountable for reducing disproportionate minority contact through policies, practices, and programs within the juvenile justice system. The reauthorization of the JJDPA contains provisions that establish equity, fairness, competence, and culturally- and linguistically-appropriate programs, policies, and practices. Core requirements of JJDPA reauthorization include alternatives to incarceration, putting children in juvenile, not adult, jails, making the juvenile system accountable, and providing appropriate treatment based on culture, language, and age.
Remove restrictions on legal services for low-income communities: As the nation struggles under the burgeoning economic crisis and record numbers of Americans are threatened with the loss of their homes, civil legal aid is more critical than ever. However, an outdated, illconceived, and inefficient law cuts deeply into the ability of low-income and minority communities to obtain a fair day in court. Restrictions in the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) appropriation rider prohibit vulnerable legal aid clients from joining class actions, claiming court-ordered attorneys’ fee awards, or having their lawyers engage in other types of advocacy. The restrictions also prohibit certain legal immigrants, all undocumented immigrants, and people in prison from relying on legal aid lawyers at all. Finally, a particularly draconian restriction extends all of these restrictions to the non-LSC funds — state, local and private funds — of recipient programs as soon as they accept their first dollar in LSC funds. These restrictions, starting with the restriction on state, local and private funds, should be removed from the next rider to the Commerce, Justice, Science appropriations bill.
Achieve automatic and permanent voter registration: As evidenced by the most recent election, as well as previous elections, our nation continues to face both old and new barriers to ensuring the right of all Americans to vote and to have their votes count. While there are many improvements Congress should make to our nation’s electoral systems, we believe that achieving automatic and permanent voter registration of all eligible Americans will go a long way to addressing these problems. Congress should pass legislation creating an affirmative duty for government to register eligible voters and establishing Election Day failsafe registration.
Ensure quality education: The No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 (NCLB) has played a significant role in exposing the breadth of educational disparities and changing the national debate around education reform. However, the law requires major improvements if it is to accomplish its goal of ensuring that all children receive a quality education. Most importantly, the law must be fully funded. There are also substantive improvements that need to be made, including improving the law’s treatment of English Language Learners and other students with special needs, addressing the graduation rate crisis afflicting low-income and minority students, and helping districts to recruit, train, and retain highly qualified teachers, especially in hard-to-staff schools. We urge Congress to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to preserve accountability, spur the development of higher standards and better assessments, and increase funding and support for students, schools, and teachers.
Eliminate the cocaine sentencing disparity: We urge Congress to enact a bill that, after more than 20 years, would finally correct a major error in drug policy - the harsh sentencing policy for crack cocaine. The policy, particularly the mandatory minimum for simple possession, subjects those who are low-level participants to the same or harsher sentences as major drug dealers. This has had an especially devastating impact on African-American and low-income communities. Possessing or dealing as little as five grams of crack cocaine, a quantity that yields 10-50 doses, can result in the same five-year mandatory minimum sentence as dealing 500 grams of powder cocaine, a quantity that yields 2,500-5,000 doses. To combat this disparity, Congress should enact the Drug Sentencing Reform and Cocaine Kingpin Trafficking Act, which would equalize the crack and powder penalties at the powder level and eliminate the mandatory minimum for simple possession.
End discrimination in employment based on sexual orientation and/or gender identity: LCCR has long believed that every American should be judged solely on his or her merits. Yet in most states, it remains legal to reject or fire a worker simply because of his or her sexual orientation or gender identity. Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) would prohibit such discrimination in most workplaces, while carefully addressing the needs of small businesses, religious institutions, and other employers with a legitimate need for flexibility. ENDA has enjoyed strong support from Congress as well as from the general public, and its enactment is long overdue.
End racial profiling: During the last five years, LCCR worked in coalition with other organizations to build congressional support for the enactment of the End Racial Profiling Act. In 2007, the End Racial Profiling Act of 2007 (ERPA) was introduced by Senator Feingold in the Senate and by Congressman Conyers in the House. If enacted, ERPA would prohibit any local, state, or federal law enforcement agency or officer from engaging in racial profiling. It would make efforts to eliminate the practice a condition of law enforcement agencies receiving federal money. ERPA would institute a meaningful enforcement mechanism to ensure that anti-profiling policies are being followed. Law enforcement agencies would be required to collect demographic data on routine investigatory activities, develop procedures to respond to racial profiling complaints, and craft policies to discipline officers who engage in the practice. ERPA would also provide victims of racial profiling with the legal tools to hold law enforcement agencies accountable (a private right of action).
Ensure language access: Approximately 24 million Americans speak English less than “very well.” Individuals should be encouraged to learn English but should never be discriminated against based on their level of proficiency or their national origin and Congress should provide the necessary funding and resources to allow federal agencies to fully enforce Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Further, Congress should enact legislation authorizing Medicare to pay for language services and increase federal payments for language services in Medicaid and SCHIP.
Create an independent fair housing enforcement agency: The fair housing enforcement system at HUD is broken. There is a fundamental conflict of interest: HUD is in the awkward position of policing its own programs for fair housing violations. HUD depends on various entities to carry out its policy goals, but is also responsible, when acting as a fair housing enforcer, to investigate some of these very same entities for housing discrimination. For example, HUD depends on lenders to promote homeownership, on builders to build affordable housing, and on cities to redevelop neighborhoods after a natural disaster. Forty years after Congress first passed the Fair Housing Act, we continue to have segregated communities, perpetuated in large part by the very agency charged with protecting the country against illegal housing discrimination. That is why a bipartisan commission, co-chaired by former HUD Secretaries Henry Cisneros and Jack Kemp, recommended amending the Fair Housing Act to move fair housing enforcement from HUD to an independent agency.
By the end of the 111th Congress
Comprehensive immigration reform: As Congress continues its efforts to consider reforming our broken immigration system, it must be careful to protect the civil and human rights of all people in the United States. New immigration legislation must take a comprehensive approach that: 1) encourages hardworking undocumented immigrants to come out of the shadows by providing a workable path to citizenship; 2) reduces unconscionable backlogs in the family immigration system; 3) respects the civil rights and civil liberties of all Americans and provides immigrants and their families with fair, humane, and common-sense procedures at all levels of the immigration, naturalization, or removal process; and 4) fully protects the rights of all workers regardless of their immigration status. We urge the 111th Congress to demonstrate a solid commitment to comprehensive immigration reform – starting with, as a down payment, the swift enactment of bipartisan legislation such as the DREAM Act, which would provide undocumented children who grew up in the United States the opportunity to become fully integrated members of our society through higher education or service to our country; AgJOBS, a bipartisan compromise supported by labor and management, which provides America with a stable farm labor force and helps ensure that farmworkers are treated fairly by giving undocumented workers a chance to earn legal status; and the recapture of unused family and employment visas, a bipartisan measure which “recaptures” family and employment-based immigrant visas that do not get used each year, due to bureaucratic delays, and allow unused visas each year to “roll over” and be used in the following year.
Pass the Civil Rights Act of 2009: The Civil Rights Act, a comprehensive bill addressing Supreme Court decisions that have undermined existing civil rights laws, remains one of LCCR’s highest priorities. Among its most notable and far-reaching provisions, the Civil Rights Act corrects the Supreme Court’s 2001 Alexander v. Sandoval decision by establishing a private right of action against entities receiving federal funding based on evidence of disparate impact. The bill also strengthens gender and age discrimination protections, improves remedies for victims of discrimination, prevents employers from forcing workers to bring workplace claims to arbitration instead of the courts, and addresses workplace exploitation of undocumented workers.
Sincerely,
Wade Henderson
President & CEO
Nancy Zirkin
Executive Vice President
Karen Narasaki
Compliance/Enforcement Chairperson
Democrats and the Black vote
January 7, 2009 · Print This Article
Lou Ransom, Chicago Defender
When Pittsburgh Courier publisher Robert L. Vann suggested in 1932 that Black voters should no longer pledge allegiance to the Republican Party, it started an unhealthy relationship between Black voters and Democrats that has reached obsessive proportions.
Since Vann exhorted Blacks to “turn (Abraham) Lincoln’s face to the wall” (in favor of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s), the Democratic Party has enjoyed almost fanatical support from Black voters. We voted Democratic even when it was clear that Democrats were not operating in our best interests. We voted Democratic even when the Democratic candidate insulted us and took us for granted. We voted Democratic even when it was Democratic governors in the South (George Wallace, Orville Faubus and Ross Barnett), not Republicans, who defied the federal government and vowed not to allow integration to force white children to share classrooms with Black children.
Which brings us to Democrats in 2009.
I’m not sure when the national Democratic Party decided that it would try to divest themselves of the Black vote. It became clear that was an objective during the Democratic presidential race, when Democrats seemed to be stacking the deck against Barack Obama. It was Democrats who sharpened their knives on Obama long before John McCain and Sarah Palin took aim at him. In fact, some of the most telling political jabs that McCain and Palin landed were simply recitations of some of the jabs Democrats threw at him.
But now come Sen. Harry Reid and the rest of the Democratic U.S. senators. They have penned a letter vowing not to seat Roland Burris as U.S. Senator from Illinois because he was chosen by that national embarrassment, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
Reid wanted to take the high road and say he liked Burris, but he and his fellow Democratic senators were so disgusted with Blagojevich, that they could not see themselves seating any appointee chosen by Blagojevich.
We had the very unflattering portrait of 50 non-Black, non-Republican U.S. senators, opposing the inclusion of a Black senator, chosen legally by the sitting governor of Illinois, who has not been impeached, not been convicted and not been stripped of any of his duties. It was Democrats standing in the door of the U.S. Senate Tuesday, refusing to seat a duly-appointed member, not because that appointee was unfit for the job (they acknowledge that Burris is quite qualified), but because they are embarrassed by Blagojevich.
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Ransom NotesBurris Jesse WhiteIllinois SenatorBut Reid's moral indignation was merely an excess of the most prolific by-product of the U.S. Senate: hot air. As the Chicago Sun-Times reported last week, Reid called the governor up to suggest a few candidates for the appointment. Reid allegedly suggested to Blagojevich that he steer clear of appointing any of the strong Black candidates (Jesse Jackson Jr., Danny Davis or Emil Jones) because they would have trouble getting votes statewide.
Reid opposes Burris, even though Burris has proven that he can get votes statewide (three terms as comptroller and one term as attorney general).
While Rep. Bobby Rush unabashedly plays the race card, arguing that an all-white U.S. Senate should not oppose the seating of a Black man, especially in replacing Obama, Reid deals the race card from the bottom of the deck. At least Rush is up front saying he wants to make sure a Black gets the seat and says the Senate should be embarrassed in this multi-cultural society to convene with no Black members.
But Reid suggested to Blagojevich that he should instead choose Tammy Duckworth or Lisa Madigan or… well, the next best white person. Anyone but those three Black men. Reid, who has never received one Illinois vote, ignores the fact that Illinois voters have twice elected a Black to the U.S. Senate.
Certainly, Blagojevich played the race card as well. In a bold stroke, Blagojevich disarmed those who said he could not make an appointment, and challenged state and national Democrats to risk alienating their loyal voting base.
It has been argued here before that Blacks should not commit their votes to a single party but instead should play power politics and force both political parties to court that vote. But remaining in thrall of Democrats, we invite the kind of disrespect we get from Reid and his U.S. Senate colleagues.
Have we started turning Franklin Delano Roosevelt's portrait to the wall yet?
Lou Ransom is executive editor of the Chicago Defender. He can be reached at lransom@chicagodefender.com.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123137373330762769.html
JANUARY 8, 2009 | Wall Street Journal
By SUDEEP REDDY
The U.S. and dozens of other nations are returning to massive government spending as a recession fighter. It's not because they're sure it'll do the trick. It's because they're running low on options and desperate for tools -- even old ones -- to fight the global downturn.
Around the world, interest rates have been slashed and trillions of dollars have been committed to bailouts. But the global recession is deepening anyway. So policy makers are invoking the ideas of British economist John Maynard Keynes (pronounced "canes"), who argued that governments should fight the Great Depression in the 1930s with heavy spending. With consumer and business spending so weak, he argued, governments had to boost demand directly.
http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/HC-DA576_Keynes_BV_20090106192914.gif
Drama was a Keynes tool. During a 1934 dinner in the U.S., after one economist carefully removed a towel from a stack to dry his hands, Mr. Keynes swept the whole pile of towels on the floor and crumpled them up, explaining that his way of using towels did more to stimulate employment among restaurant workers.
Keynesian policies fell out of favor in the 1970s, as government spending was blamed for helping to spur inflation around the world. But with the global economic turmoil being compared to the 1930s, government spending is once again back in vogue.
"The situation is so severe that we're all Keynesians again -- Keynesians in the foxhole," says Martin Baily, a former Clinton White House economist at the left-leaning Brookings Institution. "It really is such a difficult time that we're going to need to use whatever ammunition we have."
The economic turmoil is spurring people around the world to dust off Keynes's work. Nick Butler, a former energy executive now at the University of Cambridge's Judge Business School, is launching a new group called the Keynes Society to spark new thinking about economics and "revive the sense of pragmatic creativity which seems so lacking, and so necessary at the moment."
The International Monetary Fund is urging countries to boost spending by about 2% of their output -- more than $1 trillion total -- and it's likely they'll exceed that amount. President-elect Barack Obama is planning a stimulus package of as much as $775 billion over two years. China promises to spend almost $600 billion, while the European Union is pushing a package of more than $250 billion. India and Japan also have announced stimulus plans -- although nations often overstate the extent of new spending.
Critics argue that government deficits drive up interest rates and reduce investments in the private sector, which they say is more efficient at deploying capital to improve society. "The U.S. economy has soared highest when the federal government was shrinking, and it has stagnated at times of government expansion," says Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation, a right-leaning think tank.
Still, with the U.S. economy facing 1930s-style threats, the Obama administration is looking back to that period for guidance. President Franklin Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration provided jobs to millions of Americans during the Great Depression, though it had critics who said the program wasted money on unnecessary projects. The heavy government spending that followed World War II ultimately filled much of the employment gap.
Keynesian fiscal stimulus remained popular globally into the 1960s, particularly in rebuilding Europe and Japan after the war. Latin American nations boosted their economies in the 1960s and 1970s through heavy investment in transportation infrastructure, as governments expanded their budgets thanks to natural-resources income. The efforts often seemed to work. Growth accelerated in the U.S. and Europe, and the big developing markets of the time in Latin America.
But limits of Keynes-inspired growth were reached in the following decades. Many countries mistimed their spending, pouring money into their economies just as they were riding out a downturn and leading to economic overheating. Latin America regularly succumbed to hyperinflation, while in the U.S. the "misery index" -- the combination of inflation and joblessness -- climbed to 20.8% in 1980, from 10.8% a decade earlier.
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Many nations also wasted their money on unnecessary projects: Japan became notorious for investing in little-used airports and bridges leading into sparsely populated islands. Indonesia started a national car project that lost money and was riddled with corruption.
With the rise of Ronald Reagan and Britain's Margaret Thatcher, critics of stimulus policy came to the fore. The goal became to shrink government.
Monetary policy also began to play a bigger role, as central bankers drove up interest rates to bring down inflation. Recessions seemed to grow more distant and less painful. The era from the early 1980s until the recent crisis became known as "the Great Moderation," when economic activity and inflation became less volatile. U.S. Federal Reserve chairmen, especially Alan Greenspan, became economic rock stars for bringing stability to the U.S. economy.
But during this period of financial turmoil, monetary policy has been inadequate. Banks and other creditors remain wary of lending because they're afraid they won't get repaid. The U.S. Federal Reserve lowered its interest-rate target to near zero last month from 5.25% in mid-2007, and is employing other tools to restore growth, but the economy has continued to spiral downward.
So, nations are turning again to government stimulus spending to try knocking the economy back on track. Economists say that if governments can get money into the economy quickly, targeting projects that will have the biggest effect, and make sure the spending is temporary, they can avoid inflation and wasteful spending. "We do need a jolt to really cushion the blow of this shock," says Morgan Stanley economist Richard Berner. "We need a stimulus that is temporary but substantial."
In the U.S., direct government payments to consumers in 2001 and 2008 provided some temporary relief during recessions. But since only a fraction of the funds were spent, while the rest went to savings or debt, the stimulative effect was disappointing.
Now, to ensure money is spent, the U.S. and other nations are focusing on infrastructure investment to create jobs, starting with the battered construction sector. President-elect Barack Obama says he is planning the largest public-works program since the 1950s construction of interstate highways. He also plans to use stimulus funds to repair schools, expand broadband Internet access and put energy-efficient technologies in public buildings.
Similarly, in China, the government plans to pour more money into hard infrastructure such as railways and airports.
Europe has been warier of ramping up spending, because it took many years to reduce its budget deficits. Europe also has greater spending built in, because unemployment benefits there are more generous than in the U.S. and have a deeper stimulative effect. But leaders are still forging ahead on their own packages, including a $69 billion stimulus package in Germany.
For any infrastructure investment to succeed as stimulus, nations must ensure people are hired quickly to work to reverse the downturn -- and don't become part of a permanent program. U.S. governors say their states have $136 billion in "shovel ready" projects that are fully planned and simply lack funding.
But critics doubt those claims. Historically, infrastructure projects have proven to fall behind schedule and over budget. Boston's Big Dig highway project started out in the 1980s as a $3 billion effort but topped $15 billion two decades later.
Lawmakers and a variety of interest groups are already grasping for the government cash. Last month, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, noting New Deal programs that funded zoos decades ago, made a plea for its "shovel-ready" zoo and aquarium projects to be eligible for federal stimulus funding.
Inflation has quickly disappeared as a concern around the world. It's likely to reappear once growth perks up. That leaves a big test for the resurgence of fiscal stimulus: Once the economy revives, Mr. Keynes warned, the spending needs to be reversed and deficits cut. That's something nations have had a hard time doing.
http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/NA-AV155_keynes_NS_20090107193958.gif
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: PIC Communications Office
January 6, 2009 202-203-1700
Youth Ball to Focus on Young Americans, Service
WASHINGTON, D.C. - President-elect Barack Obama will host a Youth Inaugural Ball, five Regional Inaugural balls, and a ball for his Home States - Illinois and Hawaii. Vice President-elect Joe Biden will host a ball for his Home States as well: Delaware and Pennsylvania. These balls round out the list of official inaugural balls to be held on Tuesday, January 20, along with the previously announced Neighborhood Inaugural Ball and Commander in Chief's Ball. The President-elect and the Vice President-elect will appear at each of the ten inaugural balls.
"This is America's inaugural celebration in every way," said Presidential Inaugural Committee Executive Director Emmett S. Beliveau. "Young people are more engaged in this country's future than ever before and we want to harness that excitement by inviting them to participate in this historic occasion. In that same vein, we are hosting events to bring people from all walks of life and from across the country - from the President-elect and Vice President-elect's home states, as well as every corner of the nation - to celebrate this country's unity moving forward."
The Youth ball is intended for young Americans aged 18-35 and will celebrate the inauguration of the new president and the role young Americans can play to serve their communities. Tickets will be available at a reduced price of $75.
The Regional Inaugural Balls are an inaugural tradition that President-elect Obama will continue, inviting guests from the Midwest, the West, the East, the South, and the Mid-Atlantic regions to their own celebrations. Tickets will be available to invited guests for $150.
To cap off the night, Obama and Biden will each host guests from their home states to a ball to celebrate their inaugurations with those who know them best - their friends, families and local supporters. Tickets to this event will also be available to invited guests for $150.
Additional details about the balls are below:
Youth Inaugural Ball - Young Americans aged 18-35; Washington Hilton
Obama Home States Inaugural Ball - Illinois and Hawaii invited guests; Walter E. Washington Convention Center
Biden Home States Inaugural Ball -Delaware and Pennsylvania invited guests; Walter E. Washington Convention Center
Eastern Inaugural Ball - CT, ME, MA, NH, RI, VT, PR, and USVI invited guests; Union Station
Mid-Atlantic Inaugural Ball - MD, VA, DC, NY, NJ, and WV invited guests; Walter E. Washington Convention Center
Midwest Inaugural Ball - KS, IN, IA, MI, MN, ND, NE, OH, SD, WI, and MO invited guests; Walter E. Washington Convention Center
Southern Inaugural Ball - AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, and TX invited guests; National Guard Armory
Western Inaugural Ball - AK, CA, ID, MT, OR, WA, WY, AZ, CO, NV, NM, UT, OK, GUAM/AS invited guests; Walter E. Washington Convention Center
Neighborhood Inaugural Ball - DC residents, additional guests; Walter E. Washington Convention Center
Commander-in-Chief's Inaugural Ball - Enlisted active duty and reserve military; National Building Museum
###
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January 2, 2009 | ConsortiumNews.com
By Robert Parry
As bloody and grotesque as Israel’s pounding of Gaza has been, it marks a bitterly disappointing end for seven-plus years of neoconservative dominion over U.S. foreign policy, a period that was supposed to conclude with the dismantling of Israel’s Muslim enemies in the region.
Contrary to those neocon plans, George W. Bush is limping toward a historical judgment as possibly “the worst President ever”; U.S. power is waning in Iraq under a “status-of-forces agreement” that is showing the Americans the door by 2011 if not earlier; and key neocon targets – Iran, Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon – have gained in regional influence.
All the neocons have left now is to cheer the Israeli air force as it, in effect, shoots fish in a barrel, i.e. blasting away at selected Palestinian targets inside the crowded confines of Gaza, killing more than 400 people, including many children and other civilians, over the past week.
In 2001, especially after 9/11, the neocon dreams were so much more ambitious. The neocons planned to achieve “regime change” in all Middle Eastern countries that were perceived as threats to Israel and replace them with compliant, pro-Western leaders.
First on the list was Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, which was a center for Arab nationalism and an advocate for resisting Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. Since Iraq was too strong – and too far from the effective reach of the Israeli military – U.S. forces would be needed to conquer Iraq.
After that, Iraq was supposed to become the staging area for projecting American power across the region, with the governments of Iran and Syria the next targets.
A favorite neocon joke in 2003 was whether after capturing Baghdad, U.S. forces should go east or west, to either Damascus or Tehran, with the punch line: “Real men go to Tehran.” Of course, unlike American soldiers, the neocons weren’t really going anywhere, except to the next AEI conference or a Georgetown cocktail party.
By replacing the governments of Iran and Syria, the neocons would knock out the support structure for Israel’s two most immediate threats, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories. Then, with Israel – aided by some Arab allies – finishing off those two weakened militant groups, Israel could dictate terms of a final settlement to the Palestinians.
The Palestinians would have little choice but to accept an agreement even if it deprived them of the most desirable land. Peace would be imposed on the region by a neocon Pax Americana.
Pretty Rhetoric
Throughout this ambitious process, the neocons wrapped their plans in pretty or high-blown rhetoric.
There was talk about spreading “democracy” to the region (even though the neocons have never had much use for real democracy, having secured their place of power under George W. Bush after he and five Supreme Court allies overrode the will of American voters in 2000. The neocons also never objected to the plans of Bush’s political operatives to create a “permanent Republican majority” in America – a virtual one-party state – so long as the neocons kept their seat at the table.)
Besides “democracy promotion” in the Middle East, the neocons talked about advancing “human rights,” even as their policies rained death and destruction upon countless thousands of defenseless Arabs. There was also the claim that the United States was acting in post-9/11 self-defense because Saddam Hussein was in league with al-Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden (even though the pair actually were bitter rivals in the Arab world).
So there were plenty of pleasant rationales to justify the brutal strategies, so many that thoughtful analysts to this day express uncertainty over what the Bush administration’s real motivation was for invading Iraq.
It has always been a key part of neocon PR strategy to follow Winston Churchill’s famous advice that "in wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies." And for the neocons, it is always wartime, if not actual war then it’s the “war of ideas” or the “war on terror.”
Having covered the neocons since their emergence in the early 1980s as junior partners in the Reagan Revolution, I have always been amazed at their facility for clever arguments and their willingness to demonize or marginalize anyone who disagrees with them. In essence, they are intellectual bullies who care only about achieving their political ends.
Though Ronald Reagan “credentialed” many of the key neocons – the likes of Elliott Abrams, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Robert Kagan – he mostly kept them focused on Central America and other strategic backwaters.
This was not good news for Central Americans – who died by the tens of thousands as the neocons concealed or downplayed the human rights crimes committed by U.S.-supported military forces in Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua – but at least Reagan knew enough not to give the neocons broad control over U.S. policy in the oil-rich Middle East.
Reagan’s key diplomats in the Middle East were more pragmatic operatives, such as James Baker and Philip Habib. In the 1980s, the Reagan administration mostly played Realpolitik games there, like helping both sides in the Iran-Iraq War to ensure that neither one got too much of an upper hand. There also was ambivalence toward the Arab-Israeli conflict.
That changed when George W. Bush became President as a born-again Christian devoted to Israel. Especially after 9/11, Bush handed control of Middle East policy to the neocons, with officials such as Elliott Abrams holding key posts on the National Security Council, Wolfowitz at the Pentagon, and Lewis Libby serving under the powerful Vice President, Dick Cheney.
Media Megaphone
By then, the neocons also had gained extraordinary sway over the Washington press corps.
In the 1980s, the neocons expanded their megaphone from relatively small-circulation magazines, like Commentary and Dissent, to more general-interest publications, such as the Wall Street Journal’s editorial pages, The New Republic and later Newsweek (where I worked in the late 1980s).
The neocon editorialists – people like Charles Krauthammer and Fred Barnes – also excelled at amplifying their political message through their seats on TV news chat shows, such as “Inside Washington,” “Crossfire” and “The McLaughlin Group.”
By the 1990s, with the emergence of right-wing talk radio and Fox News, the neocons consolidated their power in the national news media. Most notably, the Washington Post’s editorial section fell firmly under neocon domination.
As much as the Right still uttered its ritualistic complaints about the “liberal press,” the reality was quite different. As became acutely clear in 2002 and early 2003, the neocons in the news media worked hand in glove with the Bush administration to rally public support behind the Iraq War by citing such canards as the risk of Saddam Hussein giving his WMD to al-Qaeda.
It turned out, however, that manipulating reality inside the Washington Beltway was a lot easier than controlling it inside Iraq. Rather than happily accepting U.S. occupation, many Iraqis joined an armed resistance, tying down American troops in a bloody quagmire.
Also, failing to find the promised caches of Iraq’s WMD and facing new skepticism about Hussein’s ties to al-Qaeda, Bush elevated “democracy” to be the prime post facto justification for the invasion. But that led to Iraqi elections in early 2005 and they installed a Shiite government with close ties to Iran.
Similarly, U.S.-demanded elections in the Palestine territories led to victory by Hamas and its eventual takeover of Gaza. Other elections in Lebanon strengthened the position of Hezbollah.
So, very few of the Middle East plans were working out as the neocons had airily envisioned them.
Tied down by worsening violence in Iraq, the Bush administration issued belligerent warnings to Syria and Iran but lacked the military manpower to back up the threats.
Another Front
Stymied on plans to roll up Israel’s enemies via U.S.-imposed “regime change” in Iran and Syria – and thus undermine Hamas and Hezbollah – the neocons pinned their hopes on Israel’s ability to punish those two groups with military offensives in 2006 and then possibly move on to invading Syria.
After consultations between President Bush and Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Israel engaged in a series of low-key tit-for-tat exchanges with Hamas and Hezbollah, which responded by capturing several Israeli soldiers (the U.S. press corps preferred the word “kidnap”). That was followed by a massive Israeli retaliation that killed more than a thousand people, including many civilians, in Lebanon.
Inside the United States, there was a reprise of the war-drum-beating that had preceded the Iraq War. Well-placed neocons in Washington and elsewhere tried to whip the American people into a new war frenzy. Again, U.S. politicians and much of the U.S. news media fell into line.
On July 17, 2006, New York Sen. Clinton shared the stage in a pro-Israel rally with Dan Gillerman, then Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations who had espoused anti-Arab bigotry in the past and proudly defended Israel’s violence inside Lebanon.
Responding to international concerns that Israel was using “disproportionate” force by bombing Lebanon and killing hundreds of civilians, Gillerman said, “You’re damn right we are.” [NYT, July 18, 2006]
In other statements, Gillerman had been even more disdainful about Muslims. At the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference in Washington on March 6, 2006, Gillerman virtually equated Muslims with terrorists.
“While it may be true – and probably is – that not all Muslims are terrorists, it also happens to be true that nearly all terrorists are Muslim,” Gillerman quipped to the delight of the AIPAC crowd. [Washington Post, March 7, 2006]
Despite Gillerman’s professed uncertainty about whether “all Muslims are terrorists,” this anti-Muslim bigotry didn’t generate any noticeable protest from American politicians and pundits. It would have been hard to imagine any other ethnic or religious group being subjected to a similar smear without provoking a noisy controversy.
Four months later, Sen. Clinton and other Democrats joined Gillerman at the New York rally to endorse Israel’s devastating military attacks on Lebanon. Clinton, who was then considered the Democratic presidential frontrunner, denounced Hezbollah and Hamas as “the new totalitarians of the 21st Century” who believe in neither human rights nor democracy, even though both groups had done well in elections.
Clinton was joined by two Democratic congressmen who also endorsed Israel’s bombing raids on Lebanon.
“Since when should a response to aggression and murder be proportionate?” asked Rep. Jerrold Nadler.
“President Bush has been wrong about a lot of things,” said Rep. Anthony D. Weiner. “He’s right about this.” [For more details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “A New War Frenzy.”]
Turning Points
However, as it turned out, the Israeli offensive against Lebanon – though very bloody – was generally ineffective. It may even have been counterproductive by enhancing Hezbollah’s status within Lebanon and around the Muslim world for having fought the potent Israeli military to a standstill.
As 2006 wore on, things went from bad to worse for the neocons. Their dreams of a “permanent Republican majority” – with them in charge of U.S. foreign policy – collapsed on Nov. 7, 2006, when American voters turned both houses of Congress over to the Democrats.
Two years later, the Republicans (and the neocons) fared even worse, also losing the White House to Barack Obama, despite a GOP and neocon smear campaign that featured Obama’s middle name “Hussein” and called him a secret Muslim.
Also disheartening was Bush’s capitulation in accepting a timetable for U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq. The President was forced to accept a “status-of-forces agreement” with a timetable for American withdrawal – first from the cities by the end of June and from the country as a whole by the end of 2011 – and possibly earlier if the SOFA is rejected by an Iraqi referendum.
In Washington, the neocons now are scrambling to find themselves new places of influence. Some neocon-lites are hoping to decamp inside Hillary Clinton’s State Department. However, rumors also are rife in Washington that some think tanks are lightening their ranks of neocons in order to retain some influence with the new administration.
Ironically, one of the few remaining neocon strongholds is the Washington news media, where support for Israel’s punishing bombing campaign against Hamas in Gaza is nearly unanimous.
For instance, the Washington Post’s op-ed page has shed even the pretense of offering a balanced picture. On New Year’s Day, the Post ran two long op-ed pieces – one by Ephraim Sneh, chairman of the Strong Israel party, and another by Robert J. Lieber, author of The American Era: Power and Strategy for the 21st Century. Both articles defended Israel’s bombing attacks in retaliation for Hamas rocket fire.
The next day, Jan. 2, the Post offered two more columns, one by neocon stalwart Charles Krauthammer and the other by former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson. Both op-eds enthusiastically endorsed Israel’s bombing campaign as morally righteous.
“Some geopolitical conflicts are morally complicated,” Krauthammer wrote. “The Israel-Gaza war is not. It possesses a moral clarity not only rare but excruciating.”
Gerson added, “There is no question – none – that Israel’s attack on Hamas in Gaza is justified.”
Gray Areas
Though typical of the absolutist neocon view that Israel is always right, the articles still are striking in their unwillingness to see any gray areas relating to the moral ambiguities that have surrounded the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for more than six decades.
Not only has Israel committed its share of outrages against Palestinians (and vice versa) but the neocons of the Washington news media still refuse to acknowledge the fundamental humanity of people from the Muslim world. In the neocon view, the lives of Arabs and other Muslims are cheap and their aspirations are of even less consequence.
The American neocons echo the stunning opinion of Israel Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who stated on Jan. 1 that – despite the widespread carnage in Gaza – “there is no humanitarian crisis in the strip, and therefore there is no need for a humanitarian truce.”
But that is not the view of everyone. In contrast to the Washington Post editorial section’s inability to see any moral ambiguity in the Israeli bombing campaign, Richard Falk, the United Nations rapporteur for the Palestinian territories, has deemed the Israeli attacks war crimes.
“The Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip represent severe and massive violations of international humanitarian law as defined in the Geneva Conventions, both in regard to the obligations of an Occupying Power and in the requirements of the laws of war,” Falk wrote on Dec. 30. 2008.
Among those violations, Falk cited: “Disproportionate military response. The airstrikes have not only destroyed every police and security office of Gaza's elected government, but have killed and injured hundreds of civilians; at least one strike reportedly hit groups of students attempting to find transportation home from the university.
“Earlier Israeli actions, specifically the complete sealing off of entry and exit to and from the Gaza Strip, have led to severe shortages of medicine and fuel (as well as food), resulting in the inability of ambulances to respond to the injured, the inability of hospitals to adequately provide medicine or necessary equipment for the injured, and the inability of Gaza's besieged doctors and other medical workers to sufficiently treat the victims.”
But the American neocons care little what happens to the Palestinians of Gaza. It matters not that they have been denied basic human rights for the past six decades, nor that some 1.5 million impoverished Palestinians are packed into the Gaza Strip with little hope for meaningful work or the ability to escape from what amounts to a giant prison.
Similarly, the neocons feel little or no remorse for the butchery in Iraq where hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died and many more have been horribly maimed as a result of the U.S. invasion that the neocons demanded and rationalized. Indeed, it is difficult not to judge the neocons to be racist in their nonchalance toward the killing of Muslims, though the neocons would bristle at the assessment.
In many civilized societies, the intellectual and political authors of a crime against humanity as egregious as the Iraq War would be dragged from their offices in handcuffs and put on trial. In modern Washington, however, they don’t even lose their privileged spot on the Washington Post’s op-ed page.
But perhaps we all should feel some pity for the neocons. Their grand dreams of Middle East conquest – with them as modern-day Alexanders – have been reduced to them cheering as Israeli bombs smash apart the crowded neighborhoods of Gaza.
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth' are also available there. Or go to Amazon.com.
By: David A. Patten Article Font Size
Republicans will filibuster any attempt to seat Minnesota Democrat Al Franken when Congress convenes next week, Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn warned his Democratic colleagues Friday.
It was the latest salvo in the war of words touched off this week when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., suggested Franken was drawing near to clinching a victory — despite the fact that as many as 2,000 votes are uncounted and numerous legal challenges loom.
"At this stage, it appears that Franken will be certified the winner by the State Canvassing Board,” a statement from Reid’s office declared Tuesday. “We're keeping abreast of the situation and will make a decision with regard to Senate action at the appropriate point in the process."
That statement drew a sharp rebuke from GOP leaders.
“The American people will see right through Harry Reid’s crass partisan power grab,” Ken Blackwell, who is a leading contender for the GOP chairmanship, told Newsmax. “He wants to manufacture a filibuster-proof majority to push through his liberal agenda.”
Cornyn, the new chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, left little doubt Republicans would fight any attempt to make a Franken victory appear a foregone conclusion by seating him early.
“I can assure you there will be no way that people on our side of the aisle would agree to seat any senator provisionally or otherwise unless there is a valid election certificate and all legal issues with regard to who got the most votes is finally decided,” Cornyn told reporters during a conference call Friday.
Cornyn said he is confident that no Republican would cross the aisle to support seating someone whose election victory has not yet been formally certified. Doing so, he said, would cause “damage to the Senate and its reputation as an institution,” adding, “It would be a recipe for chaos.”
Minnesota officials hope to complete their recount by Saturday, and will review ballot challenges on Monday. They could declare a winner Tuesday.
Ever since the Honorable Charles Rangel became Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee The Neo-cons and scared members of the Republican Party have been involved in a horrific scandalous movement to discredit this great American.
The following will try and bring us up to date on where the Congressman stands and the nefarious attempts by some in the media to frame what is not true as the truth.
Michael A. Lawson
President
African American Caucus
North Carolina, Democratic Party
We thought you might find the following material distributed to the press last night to be of interest:
You may see a story in the Saturday New York Times and, if at the end of
reading it you wonder how this ended up in the paper, you're probably
not alone. The reporter attempts, and fails, to establish a nefarious
link that does not exist.
In addition to numerous attempts to help the reporter understand the
actual circumstances and timeline of events, two senior members of
Congress directly contradicted the reporter's assertions and the story
is still in the paper. No matter how many people told him the world was
round, he kept insisting it was flat. The document the reporter believed
was a smoking gun was apparently a generic letter (which the reporter
refused to share despite repeated requests) written after the decision
had already been made to include the tax provision in question.
We will be happy to answer any questions you may have.
Sincerely,
Matthew Beck
Communications Director and Policy Advisor
Begin materials provided to NY Times:
To the New York Times:
You have embarked on a series of articles attempting to establish what
does not exist - a link between the broad public policy agenda that
Chairman Charles Rangel pursues as Chair of the House Ways and Means
Committee and fundraising-related activity on behalf of City College of
New York, a public institution in Chairman Rangel's congressional
district that provides educational opportunities to economically
disadvantaged minorities, many of whom are Chairman Rangel's
constituents. Because of the broad jurisdiction of the Ways and Means
Committee it is possible, indeed probable, that the New York Times can
go through the list of CCNY donors and find places where they have been
affected by federal law over the past two years - and that may indeed be
the paper's agenda. That agenda, however, turns the law on its head.
The law expressly permits Members of Congress to engage in fundraising
activity on behalf of non-profits such as CCNY and recognizes that
donations will inevitably coincide in time with legislative activity.
That coincidence of timing does not mean that there is any link between
the two or anything improper about either the donations or the broad
policy issues addressed by Chairman Rangel - no matter how many articles
attempt to demonstrate otherwise.
From the beginning of your contacts on this piece regarding AIG and the
CV Starr Foundation, there have been significantly flawed premises which
we have pointed out continually to your reporter:
1) While the initial questions asked about relationships and
contacts with AIG, Mr. Hank Greenberg, and CV Starr, it has appeared
that there has been an assumption through the questions that these are
all one and the same. They are not, as any reader of the NYT business
pages over the past several years can attest. The Board of AIG replaced
Mr. Greenberg in 2005. For that matter, as far as we know, CV Starr
employs no lobbyists and has no reported lobbying contacts with the Ways
and Means Committee, and Mr. Greenberg does not act on behalf of AIG or
in coordination in any way. And given that the value of AIG stock has
fallen in the last year from $60 to $1.50, and that federal taxpayers
are now the single largest shareholders of the company, it's difficult
to argue that Mr. Greenberg personally saw much benefit from the events
of the last year.
2) There was no contribution, pledge, or formal commitment from AIG
to contribute to CCNY - ever. While a $10 million dollar figure
appeared next to internal fundraising documents, this represented a
potential for what CCNY fundraisers thought could be an appropriate
request in 2007-08 given the company's other support for non-profit
educational activities. It is not unusual for fundraisers who raise
money for non-profits to begin with high targets.
3) The CV Starr Foundation, which committed $5 million to CCNY, has
a well-established record of charitable giving to educational
institutions, particularly to help disadvantaged youth. The Starr
Foundation has given much larger amounts to programs in New York in the
past, including a $25 million grant to the Harlem Children's Zone
Project in October 2006. Starr also gave $10 million in February 2007 to
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York
City, $1.5 million for an Arts-Education Program in New York City in May
2007, $25 million to the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation in June
2007, $25 million to the Weill Cornell Medical College in June 2007, and
a number of other grants. The Foundation also has a record of donating
to many causes also supported by the New York Times Foundation,
including Brown and Yale Universities, the Harlem School for the Arts,
The City Parks Foundation and the Dance Theatre of Harlem. The Starr
Foundation, like the Sulzberger Foundation, has also contributed to the
Rainforest Alliance.
4) Given its substantial commitment to educational causes, the
Starr Foundation was a logical potential source of funding for CCNY,
whose fundraisers submitted a detailed grant proposal to the
Foundation's Board.
5) The text of H.R. 6049, which extended critical tax relief to
American families and businesses - including the extension of the active
financing provision - was included in the bailout bill (H.R. 1424) by
the U.S. Senate. Chairman Rangel drafted and introduced H.R. 6049 as a
separate piece of legislation and ultimately decided to include an
extension of the active financing provision only after urging, and a
vote of support for its inclusion, from fellow Democrats on the Ways and
Means Committee led by Representative Joseph Crowley (D-NY) - as
outlined in his comments to your reporter. The National Journal at the
time also reported that Rep. Richard Neal was pushing for the inclusion
of the extension. This was not a provision that affected only AIG -
most major American multinationals were lobbying in favor of this.
Chairman Rangel had opposed the two year extension initially but
accepted it after a majority of his Committee's Democrats voted in favor
of including it in an early May caucus meeting. The Joint Committee on
Taxation (JCT)'s revenue estimate including the active financing
provision in this legislation is dated May 12, 2008, confirming that the
decision to include this provision occurred as a result of this caucus
meeting and was unrelated to any purported May 13, 2008 letter from AIG
to Chairman Rangel (to which your reporter has referred but has
repeatedly refused to provide to us). While neither Chairman Rangel's
personal nor committee office has a copy of this letter - to which we
were asked to respond without the benefit of seeing it - it is
irrelevant. Congressman Joe Crowley, Capitol Hill publications, and the
evidence of the JCT's estimate all confirm that this decision, on its
merits, was reached prior to the alleged letter, and the reporter
appears to be willfully ignoring these facts, or discounting them
because he is so wed to his premise that he is incapable of
dispassionately considering evidence that conflicts with it. .
6) The federal bailout of AIG was put together by the Bush
Administration and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke without any
legislative activity or direction from the U.S. Congress. This bailout
preceded the proposal of what became known as the Troubled Assets Relief
Program (TARP). The TARP itself did not provide any direct financing of
AIG. The statement of your reporter that "Mr. Rangel voted for the
legislation that paid for the federally-funded bailout of AIG" is
factually incorrect, again as frequent readers of your business pages or
front pages this fall could easily point out. Financial Services
Chairman Barney Frank spent a significant amount of time on the phone
with your reporter explaining the TARP, who negotiated it, and the
subsequent decision by the Administration to use some of the TARP for
additional AIG assistance - none of which involved Chairman Rangel.
7) While it is true that Chairman Rangel supported the TARP, it is
worth noting that President Bush, Republican nominee John McCain,
Democratic nominee Barack Obama, the House and Senate bipartisan
congressional leaderships, the American and international business
community, and the New York Times editorial page did so as well in the
face of an international economic meltdown. Is the New York Times now
suggesting that all of this support was motivated by a desire to help
Hank Greenberg?
8) Your reporter has twisted Chairman Rangel's statements in July
2008 in an effort to create a conflict between the Chairman's words and
the facts where none exists. Chairman Rangel said, in his July 22, 2008
letter to Chairman Stephanie Tubbs Jones of the Ethics Committee that
"so far as I am aware, none of those whom I wrote had any pending
requests into my office, lobbied me regarding any legislation before my
committee, or asked me for assistance on legislation in which they had a
special interest." This statement refers explicitly to the recipients
of the letters from Chairman Rangel. No such letter was sent to AIG and
accordingly it is misleading at best for your reporter to attempt to use
this statement as a representation regarding AIG. At the time Chairman
Rangel wrote to Hank Greenberg - the Chairman of the Starr Foundation
and the former CEO of AIG, Mr. Greenberg had been gone from AIG for two
years, having been forced to resign from AIG in March 2005. Chairman
Rangel's July 2008 statements are true and accurate and any reasonable
and open-minded observer of the events of the past two years cannot
conclude otherwise.
In sum, there is simply no connection between Chairman Rangel's advocacy
on behalf of an educational institution in his district and legislation
affecting AIG. We aren't talking narrowly drawn earmarks slipped into
bills in the dark of night, or vaguely worded legislative language
giving tax breaks to only one company that meets the specifications.
Whether it was the minimum wage legislation addressed in the earlier
Times article or the Bush Administration's decision to provide
assistance to AIG and active financing provisions addressed here, these
are huge policy matters that were debated and negotiated
in full sunlight, played out under the spotlight of the national press,
and covered at the time for what they were - policy arguments. Only a
newspaper desperate to compete with the tabloids can try to conclude
otherwise.
Sincerely,
Ms. Janice Mays
Chief Counsel and Chief of Staff
House Committee on Ways and Means
Mr. John Buckley
Chief Tax Counsel,
House Committee on Ways and Means
Mr. Matthew Beck
Communications Director and Policy Advisor,
House Committee on Ways and Means
