US in one line: No organized labor

NYTimes reports:

On Wednesday, 300 foreign students walked off the job and staged a protest rally at a packaging warehouse for Hershey’s chocolates, saying this wasn’t the America they had paid to see.  When they tried to organize, they said they were warned to stop complaining or they would be kicked out of the program.

Context:


The students, from Turkey, China, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Romania, Mongolia, Moldova, Poland and Ghana, were hired under the J-1 visa program, which allows foreign university students to work in the United States for two months and then travel. The idea is to let them practice English, make some money and learn what America is like.

These students found themselves working in an industrial park, packing candy and moving boxes, many on the overnight shift. Though they had each paid from $3,000 to $6,000 to participate in the J-1 program, rent and other fees were deducted from their paychecks.

NYTimes whitewash:

There is much good to see in this country. And no one should want to sugar coat the tougher side of life here either, including long shifts at backbreaking jobs for low pay that is familiar to American workers. But no workers should have to put up with bullying from bosses or threats of firing (or in this case deportation) if they want to organize. That sort of “cultural experience” should shame us all.

REALITY:


We don't do organized labor, for we restrict the 1st Amendment to noise generating ends, and suspend it when the the owners feel threatened.  Yup, the J-1 students must also be their temporary property.   How do they perceive America?  Why bother to ask, the scheme seems to be working...

Morality comeback?

Morality has long lost its place among the yardsticks with which we tell each other and ourselves how well we do.  The Darwinian justice of the markets was expected to exact the price of the socially under-performing actions.  Hence everything has turned into a market, from markets of ideas to dating markets, from job markets to derivative markets.  While many a population has followed its respective market gyrations, trying to understand and work the market magic to its advantage, the elites scorned disdainfully at any idea of morality.

The recent blowups in Iraq have brought back the moral dimension into the public discourse.  Have a look for yourself: 

Steve Bolger

New York, NY

Pathetic. Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11, but America the Stupid still propagates the lie. This country is so comprehensively dishonest it deserves its impending total collapse.

James O'Donnell III

Fremont, CA

If America’s leaders had a shred of human decency, Congress would’ve ended this criminally misguided debacle years ago, and several thousand Iraqis would still be alive today.

Instead, refusing to acknowledge our grave miscalculations (and ignoring the advice of our top military men), America had to “Surge,” giving Iraqi civilians the deadliest year of the war, just to pad the ego of an infantile failure of a president who couldn’t abide the idea of losing a war on his watch.

For the record -- which has been deliberately muddied by the Neocons and “mainstream” media -- the Surge was an abysmal failure: it exacerbated the ethnosectarian bloodbath and birthed fresh grievances with atrocities like the purge of the vast majority of Baghdad’s Sunnis (which created a million NEW refugees). It achieved none of its stated goals for political reconciliation or restoration of services.

Post-Surge Iraq is a civil war constrained only by its newly segregated population, divided by concrete blast walls erected by a brutal occupier.

Now Obama is our president, and despite his “anti-war” image, he’s been pushing Iraq to accept a prolonged U.S. military presence -- 10,000 soldiers in addition to the nearly 200,000 mercenaries we employ. He’s done so without a single strategic shift to acknowledge (and begin reversing) the terrible damage wrought by America’s profiteering policy of domination and control.

The decent (and intelligent) thing to do would be to admit our mistakes and begin making amends, relinquishing our geopolitical and economic ambitions where Iraq is concerned.

We owe the Iraqis and our own sacrificed soldiers no less.

But in Iraq and elsewhere our leaders continue down the morally grotesque GWoT path forged by Bush/Cheney. It’s a reminder that the true face of “evil” is something far more mundane than that which we usually imagine. In fact, it’s so common we see it every day.

It is the face of moral cowardice.

James O’Donnell III

Invitation2Artivism.com

harkadahl

London

A farcical, incompetent, malevolent assault on an innocent nation and it's long suffering people. The USA ought to hang it's head in abject shame (if it ever understood the notion of shame).

Donna

Cornwall, U.K.

As the mother of a former US Marine who served two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, I bucked the tide of military families by protesting the waste of war at every opportunity.

While my son accepted the fact that serving in a war zone was his job, and remained apolitical, I felt it was my job, as a mother, to condemn the immorality of squandering blood and treasury on an illegal invasion waged by warmongers -- on both sides of the Atlantic -- who lacked counterinsurgency tactics and an exit strategy.

No military parent wants to feel their child was killed in vain. But with Iraq's deadly internal strife continuing 8-1/2 years after the invasion, what else is one to think?

The cold arrogance of politicians willing to sacrifice other people's children in unwinnable wars still boggles the mind and sickens the heart.

Citizen

RI

Many comments are against the wars. Interesting, since there were also many comments FOR going in to Libya. As a country, we never like the war we're in, but that never stops us from entering or causing another one.

I'll wager that the next time the president makes the case for "intervening" in some two-bit third world country's issues, half of the people commenting against our current wars will be behind him, telling us how so very vital such and such's internal issue is to our national security, and how we desperately need to send in our troops to help straighten them out.

I am sickened by our addiction to war.

And this comment transitions it to Libya:

Alfred Noble

Geneva, Suisse

US OUT OF LIBYA NOW!!

Why is the US funding hardline Islamic Rebels in Libya?

The Rebels are guilty of far worse Human Rights Crimes than Ghadafi ever was guilty of.

Why are we the world's policeman?

We've wasted $1.2 Trillion in Libya now and are still flying DAILY bombing missions.

street professor

sydney, australia

"Democracy” comes out of the payload of a bomber aircraft, apparently… Saving them Libyans from themselves with NATO 'freedom bombs'.

Can't be long before Hillary asks Gaddafi to step down again, because the US knows what is best for the Libyan people. Free health care, education, housing, cheap oil, a massive water project and the highest standard of living in Africa isn't acceptable to the US.

You Libyans need 'US style democracy'.... heaps of debt, privatised Central Bank, high income taxes, high cost of education/health care and constant wars. Just ask the Iraqis to see how much fun it is.

Next stop, we'll help those Syrians out.

HAIDER ALI

NEW YORK

The great robbery of the century. First, the western countries sent the mercenaries for looting and plundering in Libya, and then seized the Libyan bank accounts and assets. And now they are releasing those funds to the rebels to buy the garbage from them(west), as well as pay them the consulting fees and etc.

Perhaps, if the Libya did not have $30 billion in the USA bank, it might not have this trouble.

Anyhow,the traitors will meet their consequences, and to capture the Libya like Iraq and Afghanistan will be foiled in the desert. We must feel sorry for the deaths in Iraq today, and take a lesson from this tragedy.

Lyle Vos, Democratic Candidate for President 2012

NY NY

Why doesn't the press confront Obama about Libya? Who is paying for the US war against Libya?

WHAT THE SILENT MAJORITY DOESN'T UNDERSTAND IS THAT IT WILL EVENTUALLY LOSE THE COMFORT OF WHATEVER IT INVESTED IN THE STATUS QVO.  YOU TELL ME THE MORAL, PLEASE!

There are few honest people in this crappy world!

It so happens that our mass media are designed to con-front our common sense, in judgment and values, with the worst in ourselves.  This is so much so that even when you see through the crap they put on public display, you think you are alone.

A fellow traveler at Patrice Ayme's blog, Keith to be more precise, pointed my attention to the following:

Here’s something by Max Blumenthal (author of Republican Gommorrah) who draws in all sorts of threads:
http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/640055/why_anders_behring_breivik_cannot_be_dismissed_as_a_%22madman%22/#paragraph2
In the comment section you might (or might not!) like the link to a Chris Hedges article on fundamentalism:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/fundamentalism_kills_20110726/

And that's how I've discovered Chris Hedges, what a revelation!  Hedges looks at how the institutionalized LEFT has failed the people.  Was it easy money that did it?

After all, I think there are many more of us, except that we are being kept at distance from each other, or when we come in close proximity we do it at 120mph moving in opposite directions...

Surely you didn't buy the circus our Congress had kept on display for so long.  I saw this morning I was not alone  :-)  when I read the comments from Krugman's op-ed in NYtimes.

I

honeyspider

Seattle

Calm down, Paul. Your the-sky-is-falling rhetoric is not helping your case.

"Start with the economics. We currently have a deeply depressed economy.... The worst thing you can do in these circumstances is slash government spending, since that will depress the economy even further."

That's not what Keynesian Economics says and you know it. Keynesian fiscal policy calls for deficit spending to prop up demand. Fiscal stimulus is proportional to the size of the gap between government spending and tax revenue, not the total amount of spending.

The "worst" thing you can do, according to Keynes, is to reduce the short term budget deficit, by any means. Whether it's cuts to domestic spending or tax increases makes very little difference. Now, this deal makes minimal reductions to the short-term budget deficit (on the order of $100 billion), not great, but not the end of the world, and not enough to make the difference between recovery and recession, but even if it were, raising taxes by the same amount would have exactly the same impact.

"Indeed, slashing spending while the economy is depressed won’t even help the budget situation much, and might well make it worse."

Oh, please. This is the mirror image of "tax cuts pay for themselves" and it's just as erroneous for exactly the same reason.

"And even now, the Obama administration could have resorted to legal maneuvering to sidestep the debt ceiling, using any of several options.... But wouldn’t taking a tough stance have worried markets? Probably not."

Sure, let's invoke a constitutionally questionable unilateral increase in the debt ceiling by citing the 14th Amendment. I'm sure investors around the world will happily continue buying treasuries at 3% while Congress moves to impeach the President for treason and we wait 6 months for the Supreme court to decide whether the U.S. will default on it's debt. You're not even making sense any more.

II

kathleen

Oakland, CA

This deal may provide the impetus to go with a four-party system, since liberals/progressives have been completely ditched (and dissed) by President Obama, and across the aisle, moderate Republicans are split from the Teapartiers.

Given this most recent capitulation by the President, I will find it very hard to remain a Democrat, let alone support his candidacy. I do not appreciate the scorn he has shown to those responsible for his gaining office, and I am repulsed his cozy relationship with all the Wall Street tycoons, Jeff Immelt being the last straw in that department. It is obvious who matters to this administration.

This was no negotiation. I am close to believing it was all in the plan from the start. I do not intend to vote for a Republican, regardless of which party they belong to.

It is a pity that America has come to this point, that we have declared ourselves to be a can't-do nation: can't maintain a safety net, or our infrastructure, or a decent system of education, none of it, AND we have to continue to unfairly enrich the already-wealthy.

We don't even have a President who can utilize his co-equal power and his bully pulpit to effectively prevent such a debacle. Instead it's been lots of lines drawn in the sand, only to be erased, and lots of deadlines, only to be extended, until finally, the extortionists' deal is done. For now. Because surely, now that they've tasted success, this will not be the last use of extortion; once again it's been proved quite effective!

In each "negotiation" the Republicans have become ever more emboldened to demand more in the next round. I am beginning to wonder whether I even want to live amongst people who behave so badly, who would treat so many with such contempt; who would so readily revoke longheld quid pro quo promises of Social Security and Medicare; and who would seek to deny Medicaid and food security to the destitute.

And still there are no jobs for the jobless. What are the people to do? 

 

 

III

SD

WNY

An excellently guided series of points by Paul, save - ironically - for the title. The President (and top congressional Democrats) didn't surrender! He and they got exactly what they wanted from the beginning: the promise of deep, long-term cuts to social security and medicare. That is the only reasonable way to interpret it (on top of Rep. Conyers point blankly commenting that the President has been the one insisting that SS must be a part of the deal), there have been so many possible alternatives to this deal not taken that it's the only interpretation worth taking. Had he not extended the useless, $600 billion dollar two-year "Obama/Bush Tax Cuts" in December, we wouldn't be talking about the debt ceiling now. Had he included a debt ceiling raise in that deal to extend the tax cuts, when it wasn't politically contentious, we wouldn't be talking about the debt ceiling now. Had he addressed health care cost inflation with his health care reform bill, instead of *only* coverage, we wouldn't be talking about the debt ceiling now. Had he allowed the negotiations to pass the arbitrary August 2nd deadline, it wouldn't have led to a default. The treasury has enough projected revenue for August to cover the loan interest payments. What it would've led to is a re-prioritization of spending, meaning that Social Security checks likely wouldn't have gone out in full or on time for August/September. The Republicans have already been blamed for their intransigence. That's the narrative. Failure to meet the deadline is no risk for Democrats right now. Once those SS checks fail to make it out on time, imagine the sheer volume of complaint calls and media panic hitting freshman tea-partiers. If the Paul Ryan Budget put their feet to the flames, this would've engulfed them. Had he been willing to put his re-election framing as the "reasonable" and "conciliatory" moderate behind the interests of the nation, we wouldn't be dealing with this terrible debt ceiling deal right now.

 

 

IV

LukeLiberty

California

I think those posting here are living in an alternate universe. Krugman's analysis is linear and does not address the fundamental dynamic of the ratio of debt to GDP, and the fact that it is structurally escalating. His strategies might work in times of better ratios, but there is a point of elasticity with debt. We are past it. As far as the "historical record" about tying slashed spending to jobs and economic well-being, the largest drops in government spending occurred after WW2, and the private sector went to work. And does confidence matter? Yes, which is why companies simply stopped hiring and/or got health care waivers after the HCR passage. Hirings dropped 90% within 2 months of HCR passage.

Instead of being grateful for the greatest prosperity in history, we have done what many lottery winners do - gluttonously spent even more than we have. We have demonized each other in a fight by politicians and moneyed interests to keep power and money, at the expense of the next generations. The complainers on this board do not realize it, but the greatest friends of their children and grandchildren are the ones who say the spending madness has to stop. We can't do anything on a progressive agenda to help humanity if we have no resources or have to borrow to do it. We can spend what we don't have... but only up to a point. We are past that point, after decades of indulgence and denial. Krugman's point of view has a Nobel Prize behind it. The one expressed in these paragraphs has mathematics. Math wins.

 

 

V

Where are we going?  Lower.  How low?  Until we can see the starry sky and moral law above us.