targeted and ignorant + institutional morphism

Racial Profiling Rife at Airport, U.S. Officers Say
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT and ERIC LICHTBLAU
BOSTON — More than 30 federal officers in an airport program intended to spot telltale mannerisms of potential terrorists say the operation has become a magnet for racial profiling, targeting not only Middle Easterners but also blacks, Hispanics and other minorities.

joe walsh New Mexico
What on earth are they doing? When did TSA become a stop and frisk general law enforcement agency? They have overstepped their mission. What does terrorism have to do with outstanding warrants, which are often traffic violations! If someone has pot in their pocket, how is that a threat to security?

They have gone way beyond their mission. This is a real violation of civil liberties, a real categorical advance of citizens as prisoners. Can we stop it , please? Don't use my taxes to pursue this misguided policy. If e ever have an honest Supreme Court again, it's time for a constitutional lawyer to take this on. Or we could just stop it, stop it now.




wsschaillcom florida
As many of us have suspected for some time, the TSA is not in the business of protecting us from terrorists but rather of trying to catch drug users and other common criminals. It's 'stop and frisk' on a national scale.



Luc K Shanghai, China
This year I have stopped visiting my daughters in Honolulu. Each time I arrive I'm pulled aside and questioned as to why a US citizen has a second residence in Malaysia, a primary residence in Shanghai and no residence in the US. Upon departure again I'm checked in more detail. I have a defibrillator implant done in Taiwan. The ID card issued by the US manufacturer Medtronic is not accepted by the TSA. I have to undergo a 20 minute special check in an isolation room. I'm 70 years old, Jewish.



Thomas Nyon, Switzerland
For an agency that appears incapable of stopping its own employees from stealing from passenger's suitcases, it is inconceivable that they could find a terrorist if their life's depended on it. Too bad it's our lives that depend on them.



deering24 Plainfield, NJ
Let's see--if you are black and dressed casually, you look suspicious. But you are also suspect if you are black and wear expensive clothes and jewels. And if you dress practically and casually for a flight (i.e, in sweatpants and t-shirt) and you're black, well, you're still suspect. What should black folks wear that won't make them suspect? Why am I even asking?
Aug. 12, 2012 at 9:28 a.m.RECOMMENDED23

bluestar MDNY
The Israeli's screening works because the screeners are for the most part very well trained people, often in the years of the required army service. The Istaeli screeners are chosen carefully and are well educated and intelligent,- not the least educated and poorly trained like the TSA screeners here.




Bill Fisher Baltimore, MD
The behavior detection program is hocus-pocus being used to conceal a drug interdiction scheme. Is anyone really stupid enough to believe that TSA can train a fast food worker to read minds in six weeks?

This is the third major incident in this program in a year involving racial profiling and harassment, illegal interrogations and unlawful searches and there have been others that received less exposure. TSA investigated themselves in the incidents in Newark and Hawaii and found they were innocent. No one was fired or prosecuted for their illegal searches and harassment of innocent people. What a surprise.
Where does this stupidity stop?

In the past two months 35 TSA workers fired or arrested and 66 more disciplined for misconduct on the job. A known pedophile, Thomas Harkins, was exposed in May but remains employed as a TSA Supervisor in Philadelphia.

There were a total of 97 TSA workers arrested in the last 20 months including 12 arrested for child sex crimes, over 26 for theft, 12 for smuggling contraband through security and one for murder.

This is precisely the problem with TSA, no accountability when they exceed their authority. Even police are subject to prosecution by victims. Not so for TSA workers and this must change.

The management and screeners at TSA responsible for this illegal activity should be prosecuted and the agency sued for billions.

TSA needs to be held to the same standards of accountability as other agencies.



Vera Montreal
There is no profile for domestic terrorists despite the danger they pose to racialized members of society. Consequently, a neo-Nazi covered in tattoos singing racists lyrics just appeared "normal" to neighbors. This is everyday bias that no one wants to talk about.




TimothyI Germantown, MD
As always, TSA is reacting to last year's threat. They're on the lookout for the twitchy, wild-eyed terrorists of 90's Hollywood, plus the mental caricatures produced by bigots trying to rack up points. They've hit the trifecta: ineffective, offensive, and expensive.

And MAYBE we should freeze their funding?



Scott Fortune Atlantic beach, FL
When I was a teenager in the 70's, a policeman in Miami told me, as I was sitting handcuffed in the back of his cruiser, that I seemed like a good kid and that I ought to get a haircut. I was in his car because I had been arrested for hitch hiking from my home to the beach, a few miles away.

He was honest enough to tell me I wouldn't have been arrested if I hadn't had long hair. ( I was in 10th grade, but he told me I looked like a draft dodger; the war in Viet Nam was raging.) he took me to the jail in downtown Miami (20 miles away from my house) and I had to sit in a holding cell until my mom came to get me.

I was searched before I was put in the cruiser and before I was put in the cell. All I was carrying was a comb and a few dollars. I was actually the president of my student government and of National Honor Society at the time.

From the time I was arrested until I got back home, about five hours had passed.

When I start to think about racial profiling, I remember my hitch hiking arrest in 1972, and it starts to make my blood boil. The question is whether we are a free society or a police state.




jbaker saint louis
Aside from the obvious wrongheadedness of racial profiling this focus of the TSA on looking into whether an individual traveler may be involved in some illegal act unrelated to terrorism is a waste of resources. Are these resources being used to determine whether individual travelers have violated any one of the four to five thousand criminal violations of the federal criminal code, in preference to interdicting terrorism?

There are a number of people who believe that if you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to hide, but with our expansive criminal code on any given day anyone could have violated the law. Just how many of our rights are we required to surrender on the altars of safety and security?





Dr. Bob Miami Florida
Duh!
I often travel with college student groups. Regularly they are able to predict which of them will be targeted at airport security for a "bag and body" super check.

They treat it as a learning game, an "in-class" moment illustrating institutionalized and legitimzed human ignorance and racism.




Casey Brooklyn
The TSA is doing nothing less than "stop and frisk" - hauling up anybody with dark skin. Even New York City has ceased that behavior and all they were stopping were kids. In airports, no one is safe, including passengers who count on the TSA to stop terrorism, not to spend their time shaking down "racials".




Jack NY, NY
Let's be honest, isn't this exactly what we want and need? Why in the interest of some abstract notion of fairness and equality should 90 year old grannies and 3-month old babies be subjected to full body scans? Can we not use the data from prior terrorist events to inform us of things we should look for? Does a physician "profile" me by not giving me a mamogram or my wife a digital prostate exam? Is it profiling to test my blood for certain genetic markers that are more prevalent in my racial group? Justice may be blind but she does not also have to be stupid.




MSA Miami
The TSA is a rogue force that has outlived its purpose.

1. It routinely profiles on racial characteristics -- which we all knew
2. It routinely tramples our rights, bulldozing every citizen -- which we have all suffered
3. It is not held accountable to anything: profiling, trampling our right or, worse, results

We are now routinely stripped of our shoes, our belts, our jackets, photographed naked... all for what? We don't even know if these measures actually produce results or just serve as constant reminders that we are powerless little ants in the mind of the TSA.

It is time to make them private, accountable for results and for upholding the law. Or be sued.




Ken MT Vernon, NH
They are supposedly looking for terrorists, yet to make the program look good the managers give targets or even quotas for how many people they should stop to make the program look good.

Simple question,. Have they stopped even one terrorist?

Seems to me the TSA is a part of the government we could save a lot of money on.




richard denver
Gosh. Why is it considered " racial profiling " When scientists are studying certain diseases don't they try to "profile" the groups who share certain characteristics to study ? The over-use of this " discrimination" baloney in ferreting out potential terrorists is what has lead to the frisking of grandmas in wheel chairs. Ridiculous . A big waste of tax payers' money all for the sake of " political correctness."




Kannan New York
How about doing some ethnic profiling on white supremacist who shoots up Temples, Lone crazy gunman, Corrupt Bankers who caused the financial crisis .... I wonder if you ran your percentages by ethnicity who would be on the top of the list?




Ben Deily Boston, MA
My family came to these shores in the 1700s...and have never expressed an opinion more radical than a preference for Budweiser over Coors. In and around Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley, we've been farmers, miners, preachers, soldiers, school teachers, and small-town shop keepers. Not a 5th columnist or a fanatic in the bunch.

But I have a fairly dark, olive complexion. So guess who *always* gets hassled at Logan?

Your tax dollars at work. :-)



Bear New York
So, how many terrorists has the TSA caught with this program?



Rudolph New York, NY
Why this constant complaining by the passengers - give the securiy folks a break. Whenever I'm travelling through Dubai, the heart of the Middle East, I always get checked at randon - yeah, right. For a 60 year old white guy in clean trousers, $200 shoes, a blue blazer, and a fancy carry-on bag while surrounded by zillions of that part-of-the world travellers in jeans and cheap rugsacks I feel honored - especially when it is a non-stop United flight to DC. On the other hand ......... whatever.




Milwaukee Woman1 Milwaukee, WI
It appears that TSA employees have no restraints; that is, unlike police who cannot conduct searches without reasonable cause or a warrant, a TSA employee rifled through the psyhologist's check book and client notes! This is no different than living in a police state.

financial innovation? try another name, ponzi

Is it my imagination, or does every week bring news of another financial scandal? No, it’s not my imagination.

First up: Peregrine Financial Group. This long-running fraud, which has apparently been going on almost as long as the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme, came to light when the firm’s founder and longtime chief executive, Russell Wasendorf Sr., tried to commit suicide a few weeks ago. (He failed.) Helpfully, he left a lengthy note that laid out what he had done. Peregrine, you see, is a commodities broker, and Wasendorf had been stealing the money that customers had on deposit with the firm. As you’ll no doubt recall from the very similar MF Global scandal, where $1.6 billion in supposedly segregated customer funds went missing as the firm careened toward bankruptcy, this is supposed to be the sin of sins for a commodities brokerage. Sinful it may be, but not all that difficult, it would appear.

Peregrine, which is based in Cedar Falls, Iowa, didn’t operate on the kind of scale as MF Global. But what it lacked in heft, it more than made up for in imagination. In his note, Wasendorf said that, over the years, he had used the money, among other things, to build the company’s $18 million headquarters and to “pay Fines and Fees charged by the regulators.” At the point at which the fraud was discovered, the firm was supposed to have more than $200 million on deposit for customers. Instead, it had $5 million.

And where were the regulators? Fooling them was child’s play, he said in his note. Or words to that effect.

Next up: HSBC. Who knew that the British bank was the favored institution of money launderers everywhere? As it turns out, the Senate Permanent Investigations Subcommittee knew. This week, it released a 335-page report and held a scorching daylong hearing, excoriating a half-dozen of the bank’s executives.

Perhaps because we’re bank-scandaled out, this story hasn’t gotten the attention it truly deserves. Unlike, say, the JPMorgan Chase “London whale” scandal — in which the bank’s traders simply made a big, dumb bet — what HSBC did amounts to serious wrongdoing. It was also a recidivist. Twice before, in 2003 and 2007, the bank had been cited by regulators for what The Times described as its “extensive money laundering ways.” Despite the reprimands, it continued to do business with banks that laundered money for drug traffickers and institutions suspected of having ties to terrorists. At the hearing, HSBC’s top compliance executive strayed from his prepared remarks to announce that he would be leaving that post. The others, of course, promised to do better. Don’t they always?

And where were the regulators? “Subcommittee investigators found that the OCC” — that’s the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which is the nation’s primary bank overseer — “had failed to take a single enforcement action against the bank, formal or informal, over the previous six years, despite ample evidence” of money laundering, reads the report.

Let’s now turn to “Liborgate,” where the plot continues to thicken. When last we left this scandal, Barclays had agreed to pay $450 million in fines, and a handful of top officials, including its chief executive, Bob Diamond Jr., had lost their jobs because the bank had been manipulating the London interbank offered rate, a key benchmark for all kinds of loans and derivative transactions. In recent days, however, the story has begun to revolve more and more around ... hmmm ... the regulators.

It turns out that in 2008, Barclays told the New York Federal Reserve what it was up to. Timothy Geithner, then the president of the New York Fed, sent a note to Mervyn King, the leader of the Bank of England, that suggested that the British regulators “eliminate incentives to misreport.” Nothing of the sort took place, and Barclays continued to lowball its Libor reporting well into 2009. The British Parliament has held a series of hearings with King and other top British regulators of the “what-did-you-know-and-when-did-you-know-it” variety.

Meanwhile, it has become clear since the scandal broke that Libor is a problematic benchmark in any case, because a lot of the unsecured interbank lending it is supposed to represent doesn’t even occur anymore. “It is clear that the Libor system is structurally flawed,” Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, told the Senate this week.Now he tells us.

But, finally, there’s this: On Wednesday, Capital One, the big purveyor of credit cards,agreed to pay $210 million — including reimbursing customers to the tune of $150 million — because one of its vendors had deceptively marketed and sold customers needless add-on products.

Where were the regulators? In this case, it was the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that conducted the investigation and brought the action against the bank. It was the agency’s very first enforcement action.

These days, I guess, that amounts to progress.

Joe Nocera

_____________________

• John McBride
• Seattle, WA

Bigger than these is the failure of us as a society to be aware that while all these scandals were going on and while the 5 largest banks in the country were left unscathed, community banks around the nation had their assets seized and were fed to larger banks.

Today the FDIC failed 4 community banks, two in Georgia, 1 in Florida, and 1 in Missouri.

http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/banklist.html

Hundred of community banks have gone under over the last 4 years while Wall Street parties on, wealth become more concentrated in the hands of fewer Americans, and income for the rest declines.

5 banks in the U.S. control over 50% of the nations GDP. The top 7 control 2/3's. And they're TBTF. That's "Too Big to Fail" for novices.

http://www.ffiec.gov/nicpubweb/nicweb/Top50Form.aspx

Wealth in the U.S. is far more concentrated now than it was before the crash. That money that vanished in the crash? The cash that traded hands for stocks and very real assets? It didn't go away people. It went into bank accounts.

So, Mr. Nocera, writing on this Friday night after checking the FDIC failed bank list and leaving happy because I'm not on it and sad because small community banks across the nation are, keep in mind that there are easy scandals.

And then there are the oh, so ever so quiet abominations that newspapers can't sell advertising space for.

Like George Carlin said: "The wealthy and powerful? They're a club. And you ain't in it."

• Laurel
• Nellysford, VA
• 
  

The OCC proudly proclaims that it has allocated 75% of its auditing staff to community banks that hold 15% of the assets, deposits, loans and employees in the system, and 25% of the staff is tasked with monitoring the other 15 banks that hold 85% of the assets, deposits, loans and employees. The new Comptroller of the Currency maintains that this allocation of resources is about right.

It appears that the regulatory system is set up to let the "too big to fail" institutions conduct their affaris without much oversight, and that's the way they like it. Is it any wonder that these cases of fraud are occuring? 50% of the community banks in this country are operating under some type of regulatory enforcement action, while its business as usual at the big bank serial offenders.

This is one of the more obvious examples of how the system is rigged in favor of the big players.

• Meredith
• New York

Tut, tut. Ain’t it awful? You ask ‘where are the regulators’? Isn’t it a bit behind the times to be asking such a question? Especially from an experienced business journalist? The regulators have been systematically underfunded and rendered powerless starting about 30 years ago. Clinton signed repeal of glass steagall. The vulture enablers were deep into the cabinets of Clinton, Bush and Obama. Obama admires Reagan and shuns too stiff regulations. Why do I even have to write this in a comment to Mr. Nocera?

During all this time, if the business and regular media had challenged this destructive process, and held centrist politicians and moderate pundits accountable for their excusing of it, maybe things wouldn’t have cascaded so far down, But the financial press didn’t want to be criticized as sounding too liberal.

Indeed we’ve seen a sort of Niagara Falls type surging cascade of financial crime—because it’s been legalized, normalized, blessed by courts and media. Nobody can prove it’s actually illegal. Nobody goes to jail. After they pay fines they then crank up the looting machine right away. The financial writers use their contacts, and make money selling books exposing the shame and get interviewed on TV. We have tumbled down so far over the Falls that the strong current is carrying us away down stream. How can we ever have the strength to reverse, and start swimming up stream, back to a lawful economy?

• joe
• ny

With regards to Peregrine, they are one of many. The most underreported story in the annals of high finance malfeasance is that, over the past 4 years, the SEC has literally been overwhelmed by the emergence of hundreds of cases of fraud by brokers and hedge fund managers. That is not an exaggeration. Over the past ten years, luxurious lifestyles all over the country were supported by outright theft and Ponzi schemes. This was possible because the line between normal activity and sociopathic fraud had been wiped away by the lack of oversight and anything-goes accounting standards.
With regards to money laundering at HSBC, one of the dirty little secrets of secret markets and offshore accounts is that, for good reason, that's where criminals launder their dirty money. Counterparties in OTC transactions do not have to prove their legality. Aided by secrecy, bankers make oodles with access to this cash. It is even possible that U.S. taxpayers paid off credit default swaps contracts held by criminals in the bailout of AIG.
With regards to LIBOR, the settlement with Barclays involved no admission of guilt, despite incontrovertible evidence and represents a most disgusting miscarriage of justice. What must be said is that Tim Geithner, upon being informed of years of widespread criminal activity, did effectively nothing. He must resign as Treasury secretary immediately. He is complicit in fraud.

• G. Recco
• NYC

Frog-march a dozen of these high-ranking bank execs into the back of a paddywagon on live TV, while freezing all their assets, and watch how quickly these banking shenanigans come to an end. But, thanks to regulatory capture, there is no fear of this happening, so the Wall Street scandals will continue.

Lost & Found: The American Dream

Rob
NY

With all due respect John, I think the point that the article makes is that there are hardworking folks all over who, despite their hard work, aren't seeing the same kind of return for the efforts that previous generations have. The numbers reinforce this idea; it's not just the plight of the individual people interviewed. It was never easy, but it's also never been this hard.

It's easy to say just go out and work harder. But do you mean to tell me that this generation of Americans isn't doing the best to provide the best life for themselves and their families? if so, I'm not sure I share that opinion of us.

I'm currently trying to find a job as a teacher without much luck. I can only find per diem work. I do it anyway, and I work hard, but I can't even make enough to cover my student loans and health insurance. I live at home with my parents. I'm 25 years old, and when I was young, I was told that hard work would bring me, at the very least, a middle class life. That's all I want.

I've done everything right, by the guidebook of the American Dream. I am exactly who this article is talking about. I don't expect a luxurious life, nor do I want one. But a stable job with which to start a family is what I hope to achieve.


Concerned Citizen
Anywheresville, USA

[...] However, a bigger underlying fact is ignored -- this is structural unemployment (and underemployment) because today, with our huge growth in population (including illegal aliens) & high technology, there are simply MORE PEOPLE who need good jobs than there is a NEED FOR EMPLOYEES.

From the 80s through the early 00s, we pushed very hard -- including this publication -- for "more efficiency", streamlining operations, cutting out deadwood, cost containments and so on. And the net result of that (helped by the computer revolution and internet) is that it takes FAR, FAR fewer people today to make all the things we need to buy, and provide all the services we require.

A similar situation occurred from the late 19th to early 20th centuries -- improvements in farm technology meant that instead of 90% of the population being required to grow food, we needed less and less until today, only 1% of us are needed to grow all the food we need (and enough more to export).

Fortunately back then, the excess farm workers could migrate to the cities, and work in the new factories making automobiles & steel. But by the 70s, THOSE jobs were redundant. So the excess factory workers were told to "retrain" on their own dime, and become "high tech" workers. Now, we have too many high tech, office and managerial workers -- but there is NO PLACE LEFT for them to work at.

Until we address this, we are doomed.


knmi
Washington DC


When my kids, who have education and good work experience, can't make ends meet (and I'm not talking about vacations but $750 rent, food, and payments on a used Ford Focus) because they can't get even full-time hours; when they scrape together every penny in the house to put $6.91 worth of gas in the car to get to work; when they take a second job delivering take-out to kids on frat row who can't be bothered to tip; when they get sick and have no insurance to see the doctor; when there is no PTO so if they don't work they don't get paid; when they get to be the "one person" you're talking about, maybe then I'll think they're slackers and whiners. Walk a mile in their shoes and then come back and tell me about making something of yourself.





Kaitain
Vancouver


Most people still don't get it.

This is permanent.

Automation is removing many jobs permanently, and they will not be replaced.

In 100 years' time, only a small percentage of the population will do work as currently conceived.

Our current economic model is not equipped to deal with this eventuality, but we're already on our way there.



Gary
North Carolina


I'll be 60 in September. When the economy bottomed out, I was forced to close my art studio in Michigan. Fortunately, for me, I was a teacher for 20 years and qualified for an early pension . . . but part of the provision is that it ends when I turn 62 and qualify for Social Security. The plan was to have both the pension and the SS--now that plan has tanked.

The pension is just enough to pay the rent and utilities. To put food on my table and to pay small bills, I secured a job at a grocery store chain bagging groceries and getting carts--it took me a year to get it! I've moved up and work in the Produce Dept. (for the same hourly wage). No health insurance. What pple don't understand is that often when health insurance in offered to part-time employees, it's not the best coverage and often eats into the meager pay checks one receives.

It's all hard, physical work. No one my age in this country should have to work so hard just to put food on the table.



Socrates
Downtown Verona NJ


Thirty-years of stealth class warfare have been successfully waged against the non-rich and the official results are: feudalism has returned after a 600-year absence.

A limited number of jobs, most with non-livable wages, zero benefits, and soaring costs in food, shelter, healthcare as well as in the only possible escape route - advanced education.

Massive job offshoring, massive tax upward redistribution to the 1% and the corporate, and massive privatizing of 'the common good' and public services have been the root cause and they are the heart of the Grand Oppression Party.

With a massive economic underclass in place, half of them tricked into supporting their own economic suicide through the the GOP's flag-waving, bible-thumping, tax-cutting, Know-Nothing propaganda campaign, the 1% can do whatever it wants until we the underclass rise up and fight.

If you want more evidence of the conspiracy, median pay of the nation’s 200 top-paid C.E.O.’s was $14.5 million, according to a study conducted for The New York Times by Equilar. The median pay raise among those C.E.O.’s was 5 percent.

Until the next American Revolution comes, expect more of the same economic warfare against the 99%, especially by our Republican 'Free-Market' Friends for Feudalism.



billp65
Fort Lauderdale

Cost of everything goes up in price, her job no longer pays $9.00 an hour, but now it pays $8.00 and hour. No jobs and less money in the economy and by hook or by crook companies find ways to NOT give the worker any benefits. The cost of tuition goes up at colleges. Health care costs are driven up by people who tell us that they are better at controlling costs than Medicare. Business has a record level of cash in the bank, the one in the Cayman's. We are told that they will provide jobs yet all they do is attack women's rights. They claim to be for smaller government yet they propose and make laws that put more and more restrictions on the individual freedoms and right to vote, and fewer and fewer restrictions on the greedy old people who have caused the economic problems with their 'too big to fail' banks.
When will the people of this country wake up and see that the once great Conservative Party of Eisenhower is nothing but a party of greedy old people whose only goal is to amass more money and more power, and do not care about any one other than themselves. If we don't flush them out of the game this year, we may never have another chance. Why? Look to Florida and Michigan and you see the outlines of the plan to make it impossible to vote and the desire for dictatorial Governors and Presidents.



mancuroc
Rochester, NY

Lets' get real here. When in the '70s inflation was in the high double-digits, people were at least able to keep their heads above water. That was before the private sector began its campaign of downsizing, job-exporting and union-busting. The real problem today is not so much inflation as it is people's greatly curtailed income and reduced wealth.

A statistic came out the other day showing that median family wealth had fallen by about 40% in the three years up to 2010. That wealth didn't just disappear. It went somewhere, and we all know where; but the affluent chattering classes won't acknowledge that - they shrug it off as "the free market".






Groov
Southeastern USA

Recession depleted the number of available jobs, globalization reduced wages. Both political parties are responsible for policies leading us into recession as they too are responsible for policies allowing "globalization", aka master-slave business models, to force Americans to accept lower wages or move into low paid service-sector jobs.


Privacy Guy
Hidden

I think that it is the essential nature of a recession that bad things happen, even to people who are doing all the right things. Just look at demand. The right thing to do in hard times is to cut spending and pay down debt. The problem arises when everyone tries to do that at the same time. Then despite everyone acting rationally, the economy tanks. Many of these folks are doing everything right but are being torpedoed by macroeconomic forces. I think your claim that no generation had it easier is not born out by history. If you started your work career just after WWII, you had a much better chance of being able to get a job and to have a rising salary over your career. Take the same person, with the same level of effort and start their career in 1990 or worse, now and you would find that they were much less likely to succeed. The valid point you make is that, despite all these head winds, we all need to make the best of it. Let's not pretend, however, that there is not a strong macroeconomic component to most people's current struggles.



Byron Delaney
Oregon

Yes I too have degrees from a university and have found myself working hard for only a few hundred dollars per month or less with no real job security. And I'm aware that the government can define "employed" people as those who have a home business yet have no income, as well as people who work only two days per week at a paying job (or perhaps even less). Thus, I ponder early American history, when cash and bank accounts were much less important, and people survived to a large extent by living off the land and bartering. So I look around today and what do I see? Paved roads, cars, and stores full of food that's been packaged and trucked or shipped long distances. I also see lots of hermetically sealed buildings sucking up electricity and gas constantly. Then I think about less developed countries. How do people there survive on pennies a day? Well they are much more efficient for one. They have very affordable staple foods that aren't broken up into little portions with higher profit ratios that are sealed in costly little plastic and cardboard packages a thousand miles away then shipped to a store that's lit with hundreds of lights and cooled or heated with intricate, costly machinery. People walk instead of drive large, expensive machines. And so on. I guess my point is, individual Americans are rather helpless in a horribly wasteful, costly situation, even if they make very little. And very complex, technologically advanced things do have a tendency to crash and burn.


John S
Kansas City, MO

Where I work, they don't hire replacements when people leave and this has been going on for three years now. They (executives) tell us that they are looking at BPO to help us find efficiencies. A lot of people were laid off last year as efficiencies were found by sending the work overseas, and I expect more of that to come.

Corporate profits are at an all time high, I keep reading and maybe it's true. However, worker morale is in the tank, the mantra "at least I have a job" is just getting depressing. I feel for those who cannot find work and I would not be surprised to find myself in the same position. I am reluctant to spend money when I fear losing my income. I am sure that my situation is not unique. Multiply this so many times and you have a recession/depression.


Steve Bolger
New York City

Karl Marx was right about the tendency of a plutocracy to hoard all the benefits of productivity gains to itself.



katyh
Tuckerton, NJ

Ten years ago if someone were to tell me that I'd be living with one of my children I would have laughed hysterically. Little did I know that would be the case.After my divorce in 2001, at the age of 52, I launched out on my own and started my own business as an Interior Decorator. How I absolutely loved my job. I had no problem getting clients and working with a company that also gave me referrals was an extra bonus. But, everything began to change with the housing crisis. My business began to dwindle, the company I worked with went out of business. My mom's house needed help with payments after my Dad passed away. So, I moved in with her and we thought maybe a smaller home for the 2 of us would be more economical since my older son was still living with me would be moving on with his life. We put the house on the market and thought we could really make a profit and be set for retirement in the near future. Then it became impossible to sell our home. The bills were piling up. My Mom passed away and now I have no help financially except my business. The house eventually sold but at a huge loss,enough to pay off some of the credit cards that were piling up. Now the only job I can get is a part time job at a chain restaurant hostessing and I cant afford a place to live. I'm on the verge of bankruptcy and my other business has slowed down to barely nothing. I'm 64 years old now and cant get work anywhere that I am qualified for and my retirement gone!






J.Fullmer
Dearborn, MI

Everyone agrees that we need jobs. Did the jobs disappear because of laziness, ignorance and/or technology? I don't think so. We still buy shoes, plastic chairs, cellphones, cars, pencils, steel,etc.; they just aren't made here.
We have all been conditioned to believe that foreign tariffs and trade wars are things to be avoided. I don't think so.
We are a big enough country, smart enough, and rich enough to provide most of our goods. What we lack, we should allow to enter on our terms. Why don't we produce our own shirts and computers and apple juice and tooth picks and TV monitors and fish? I'm afraid NAFTA and WTO are not what we need and I'm not waiting for our politicians to change things. I'm off to raise my own fish.


casablanca
Manhattan

An American Story - A gallon of milk without hormones and drugs in it = $9.20

How do American families live any sort of normal existence when they can barely afford good food for the table? Instead, they are forced to buy cheap Industrial food full of chemicals, drugs, sugars and fillers.
Their health diminishes from eating junk and they are forced into a health care system that makes its HMO masters very rich. Their insurance doesn't begin to cover the costs and the deductible and premiums keep rising. The doctor visits get put off until a "better month" when money may be available, but never is.
The car breaks down, the furnace quits, the electric bill soars; the wages don't begin to cover the bills. Bad quality food reduces energy and the will to struggle. Anger prevails and sets a tone in the home. Then someone loses their minimum wage job.
The car registration is due; the state raised the fees by 500% last year. Property tax is higher than the house is worth and the mortgage is upside down and the bank is calling. Things are going on the credit card not because of indulgence but because of necessity. The credit card interest rate is usurious and years ago would have been illegal. There is no financial cushion, not a dime left each month. The cycle begins anew on the first.
We are worse off than the peasants of 1347. Rise up?! We are too worn down by bad food and ugly corporate television to care let alone act. We are the Americans of 2012.


Michael
Westchester County

The boomers can't leave their jobs because the two wealth preservation tools, stocks and housing, have failed them. The younger generation is being offered cheap loans to get an education that, in many cases, prepares them for yesterday's economy while leaving them a massive debt load. The result is a lack of dynamism and a creeping sameness that stunts the growth we need to pay our enormous bills.


Ed The Rabbit
Baltimore, MD

Since Paul Volcker was chairman of the Federal Reserve the practical definition of inflation has been "your wages." The Fed has worked to surpress "inflation," so defined, ever since, while altering the official measures of inflation to make it appear smaller. Check out Shadowstats.com for the running comparison.

Meanwhile, the far right has sold many of the new poor a bill of goods--starting with the idea that they are "middle class" at $12 an hour. Even the Democrats buy that nonsense now, as well as the big lie that there is no alternative--that "globalization" means that the U.S. could not have an industrial policy even if having one weren't "socialism."

I'm glad to see that the NYT has finally caught on to the basic fact that most (not some, not a few--most) Americans have been losing ground financially for more than a generation. This is the biggest story of our time, and until recently all the major news outlets have completely missed it.

Now it's time to bring forth the alternatives. There are other, better ways to arrange one's economy and society. We can do it.


jeffrey freedman
buffalo, ny

We see the effects of unemployment and under employment everyday when we consult with clients at our law firm.
People struggle to make ends meet in the current economy.
Some of the individuals we see have debt or medical problems that make their situation even worse. After a typical client fills up their car with gas, pays for medications, and pays their monthly student loan bill there is not much left.
We help the clients prioritize what must be paid, advise what they might do to increase their income, and we use our knowledge of the law to help the best we can. What I have observed from practicing consumer law for over 35 years is a shrinking middle class. Its a sad commentary for America in 2012.


Progressisgood
Dublin, CA

The on-going economic crisis is just salt in the wounds of American workers. Our incomes have been in steady decline for over 30 years prior to the current economic meltdown. This was due to the conservative/Reagan revolution that took place in 1980. The conservative economic philosophy and policies are all intended to transfer as much wealth as possible from the middle class to the investor class. It was done under the false premise that those handful of investors could do a better job of investing our countries wealth and the jobs would rain down on the rest of us.

The conservatives forgot about a little thing called self-interest. Instead of investing that money where it would do the most good for the most American citizens, it was spent and invested where it would benefit the investors. So they invested our capital with our foreign competitors, they "invested" it in funny paper at the Wall Street Casino, they invested it in McMansions, Art and Luxurious Vacation Getaways. What money they had left all went into their off-shore bank accounts.

Conservative economics has been a huge failure for all except a handful of American citizens. We need Progressive Pro-Growth policies that will benefit all Americans and not just the hand chosen few.


John
PA

Why is it that so many of you blame Republicans, Democrats, Capitalism, Tax Codes, etc etc etc..

Being employed and successful in this thing called life takes a ton of hard work, effort, education, support from loved ones, etc etc etc.. We easily forget this because we feel we deserve more - we deserve to have that Lambo, or that $500K house.

Folks, being employed, raising a family, taking vacations HAS ALWAYS BEEN TOUGH. There were NEVER any easy generations who got by through wonderful politicians.

Articles such as this that examine one person and their struggles may be typical of many people and their situations, but there will always be unfortunate cases, unfortunate situations. As many articles NYT could write on this, I could write the same on successful people.

Suck it up, this is life. Cry about your politicians, or go out and make something of yourself. We all know the opportunities still massively exist.


RichWa
Banks, OR

If anyone is curious as to where money they earn (if they are lucky enough to have a job) is going they need only look at the increase in wealth in the top 1% -- and especially the top 0.1%. CEO's at our country's biggest companies earned 380 times more than a typical American worker -- in 1980 it was 42 times. Average CEO pay rose 14% from the $11.4 million they averaged in 2010. (http://www.aflcio.org/Corporate-Watch/CEO-Pay-and-the-99

Wealth in this country is not disappearing, it is being stolen from those that create and earn it only to be stashed away by sociopathic individuals whose avarice knows no end. (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/opinion/why-i-am-leaving-goldman-sachs... Their non-financial companies are sitting on over $2 trillion which, if invested at home in the USA, would end our current depression (it is only a recession to the economists) but till they return us to the age of royalty and feudalism the 0.1% will continue to tighten the screws.





HN
Ca

There a lots of good paying jobs out there. However they require 2-5 years of experience, attention to detail and a willingness to suffer greasy hands, bloody knuckles and a tired back.

If you are a skilled, credentialed and ethical worker in the trades you can make $20-30/hr working for an employer or $70+/hr independently (plus markup on parts).

These are not the comfortable technical or white collar office jobs everyone now wants but are the kind of jobs that built america before college replaced an education in the trades as the norm.

If you attend college as trade school (engineering, accounting, professions) then you probably will be OK. However if you attend college for a broad-based education (what college was originally designed for) then you better have a marketable skill to fall back on.


Cameron Skene
Montreal CA

When GenX was going through the same thing in the 80's and 90's, our complaints were completely ignored. Now that it's happening to everyone else 30 years later, it becomes a more pressing item.
Many people I know have struggled for their working lives, and are ridiculously behind. My brother is now the part-owner of five restaurants, and only recently was able to divest himself of roommates.
Advice for the generation coming up: you're right. It's a scam, and you're being ripped off. Also, beware: it's NOT GOING TO GET BETTER.
I've been around long enough to see the carrot is rotten.
Off with their heads. It worked last time. At least the French have health care now.


Amen
Below the Ivory Tower, Los Angeles

What is pathetic is how hard it is to hire. I'm offering quality jobs with healthcare in Southern California and can't find people who can spell, let alone manage other people. Based upon my view of the labor market, as an employer, we have only ourselves to blame.


Kalidan
NY

Most of the 22 years I spend in India, I heard the following pretty much every day and all the time from the elders that were around me (this might be a common experience; Indians are notorious, unrelenting scolds):
a. It is getting tougher and harder, prices are getting higher.
b. Things are getting more difficult, it is difficult to make ends meet.
c. Things are not as good as they once were, people cannot be trusted.
d. It is all the government's fault, they are corrupt . . .

Whether true or not, this discourse (among other things) has kept India poor. We believe that environmental change is uncontrollable, and our noble response is to suffer (and in India, "obey your elders).

The learning is clear. If I am not engaged in an accelerated, deliberate process of improving my skills and capabilities, and my ability to produce value, I have no economic viability in a system that moves at warp speed.

We ignore evidence to our peril that one cannot possess one skill and have it serve as a vehicle for a good life, for all our lives. The solution is not political, nor cultural, it is personal commitment.

Americans seem to keep looking at the government to take charge and find a solution for problems that only personal commitment and sacrifice can solve. You are worried that factories are going to China? Wait until the new immigrants from Asia (like me) come into your neighborhood. Good luck with asking the government to help you then.

Kalidan



mingsphinx
Singapore

The reason wages for the young in America are in decline is because wages in the past had long outstripped productivity. This downward adjustment is very similar to the internal devaluation which the Greeks are experiencing. It is basically an adjustment to economic realities because the productivity differential between the United States and the so called emerging economies has shrunk dramatically over the last 30 years.

In other words, higher wages in the United States can no longer be justified. For many American businesses, lower wages and a small workforce is the only way they can hope to remain competitive and to survive. However, like in Europe, people of the baby boomer generation have been able to lock in their abnormally high salaries though past industrial actions. To compensate, the younger generation must either accept less or the system would essentially bankrupt itself.

Although such unpleasant economic dynamics will have an enormous influence on American politics and result in repeated and possibly destabilizing changes, it would not matter who gets to be in charge because there is little that anyone can do. Efforts to change how events are shaping out, like the enormous sums spent by the Obama administration to prop up the economy, will not only be futile it will actually be harmful because such spending only perpetuates the baby boomer privileges whilst shifting the final burden on a younger generation already laden with debt and hampered by lower wages.



FrontBurnerIssue
Charlotte, NC

What is the difference between companies that hire:

-An American citizen
-An H-1B foreign worker
-An overseas worker?

Answer: Nothing. In the eyes of our tax laws all three companies are given the same tax deduction.


KEYWORDS: PROTECTIONISM, ANTI-GLOBALIZATION, TAXATION, INJUSTICE, MARKET FORCES, SECULAR ADJUSTMENTS, LOWER STANDARDS, DREAMS, ILLUSIONS, WAKE UP, NO DIRECTION HOME

Fear is the mindkiller, yet They have not foiled any major plots so far

According to the NYTimes,

U.S. Security Expands Presence at Foreign Airports
By placing officers in foreign countries and effectively pushing the United States border thousands of miles beyond the country’s shores, Americans have more control over screening and security.

Travelers React


HeloiseMassachusetts
It's not just customs and border patrol. A recent trip to the US with a plane change at Toronto Pearson started with pleasant, efficient interactions with Canadian officials and employees. At Toronto, US-bound passengers were directed into the TSA screening area, where we were immediately confronted by hollering TSA employees, and their groping, thieving hands. The contrast between the two countries' operations, housed only steps apart, was like a bodyslam to the senses. I was so humiliated for my country. ( For that matter, when transferring from an international flight to a domestic flight within the US, it's heartbreaking and shameful to watch citizens from other countries try to figure out TSA procedures, being bullied and berated as their "welcome.")



ScottWChapel Hill, NC
Can you imagine Canada, Mexico, England, coming to the U.S. demanding to set up their airline security programs? As the World's imperial power, we cannot help ourselves in overreaching in every other Country's affairs under the guise we are just protecting ourselves. Most Americans are so used to American World dominance, they see nothing wrong with our conduct. Contrary to what Bush said, they don't hate us for our freedom, they hate us for our meddling in their sovereign affairs.



Matt ConnollyBoston
A friend recently went through the security at Shannon and described it as a grueling experience - sort of a ground hog day experience of doing the same thing over and over.

I don't know what is wrong with this country. We are in fighting wars in at least five countries, we're building new bases in the Phillippines hoping to take on China, we've got dozens upon dozens of military basis in foreign countries and now we are expanding into the civilian policing areas.

The foreign countries don't have to be relieved of the costs of providing air plane security. They can do it as well as we can. Let them do it and stop finding new ways to expand the costs to Americans.

The way we are going we'll soon be saying we can do a better job at policing London streets than the Bobbie's and American cops will be walking the Piccadilly beat.




YVRCabinCrewVancouver, BC
As an airport employee I interact frequently with USCBP officers stationed in Canada. They completely set the rules in the area of the airport work and treat even us, who they see on a daily basis, as assumed criminals and terrorists - for example, we have to turn off our radios when crossing their queue area.. We have to deal with passengers who miss their flights because they are detained, sometimes for hours, for as little as not having a customs form filled out because they do not speak English (as it is a legal document we are not allowed to complete it for them). Then we have to explain, if they are American, that these officers are not Canadians but Americans. I used to fly frequently to the US and invariably found these officers arrogant, overbearing, condescending. I spoke with a psychologist once who helped design intake testing for Canada Border Services applicants. He said Canada's approach is that 99% of travelers pose no threat, so hire people with good customer services skills to deal with them respectfully, and train them to handle the other 1%; he also said that the US hires officers with a law-enforcement background who treat everyone as though they are that 1%. It is extremely galling to Canadians to have these power-tripping goons at work on our soil in airport facilities funded with our tax dollars and ticket surcharges who treat people so shamefully in many cases. But hey, if you're out the airport a couple of minutes sooner at the other end...




HzIllinois
It's not a big deal for these countries to let some extra space in airports to homeland security when they can charge whatever rent they want to the US taxpayer.

I guess DHS has saturated the U.S. "market" with its police state apparatus, and now it is finding foreign markets to justify ever increasing expenditures in the budget, further bankrupting our country. The hypocrisy of self styled tea party/fiscal conservative congressmen like Peter King disgusts me.



patientpatientColorado Springs
They're in Winnepeg, of all places. Their security is essentially no different from the Canadian protocols, except for rthe shoes. The question that looms large: If we keep spending ourselves further and further into bankruptcy with this nonsense, has Bin Laden really succeeded in bringing the U.S. to its knees? It's looking that way.

"Fear is the mindkiller" -- Frank Herbert in Dune





KateWest
The article says passengers are screened for explosives.

Not sure exactly what this means.

Do you mean to say, that because you are a US citizen, you now can be electronically strip searched not only in US airports, but also in 14 additional locations around the world?

So that by simply being an American who participating in air travel, you forfeit your 4th amendment rights to be secure in your person and personal effects unless a warrant signed by a judge.

The contrived nightmare of 9/11 lives on. Promoted by those who would destroy our Constitution in an effort to expand the police state.

Effective security measures can be undertaken without destroying the US constitution and our system of law and legal procedure in the process.




STalaricoLittle Silver, NJk
My husband was detained by US Customs as we left Iceland last summer. No reason. Just a random, "you're coming with us." He wasn't allowed to go to the boarding area until just before the airplane left. He was patted down and wanded for explosives in a room separated from the boarding area.

I was not detained. I was left standing there wondering what the hell was going on. One of the officers invited me into the room to sit with my husband because I stood outside the door and refused to leave. I had no intention of boarding the plane without him.

First the terrorists scare us, the our government scares us even more. I might have called this incident a violation of my 4th amendment rights, except that I was in another country in "no man's land." Did I even have any rights? It was a frightening experience.




JonquilUtopia
You buried the lede here.

"They have not foiled any major plots so far,"

So. Ongoing security theater. "Those nasty foreign security systems can't protect you, but we can." I experienced this in London: one long line for London airport security, then another, including hand inspection of all bags, for U.S. security. This is, bluntly, an insult to a country that has been coping with internal terror bombs since the 1930s.




Peter S.Chicago
Another outpouring of taxpayers money that will eventually solve nothing. Here is an idea: If the US government and its wealthy benefactors feel so threatened, perhaps the US ought to cease pushing its culture on every nation and their people around the world.





happyktAustin
America has become so hated, we are almost doing what Israel does at its airports to stop terrorism. There is a correlation here.




GordanSalt Lake City
For those who think highly of these and other security measures, here is a food for thought:

About 30 years ago the American Consulate in Zagreb, Croatia, was located in
an old building in the center of the city. It featured a library on the
first floor where you can check out books and find out about schools in
the USA, among other things. Most remarkably, you could freely go in and out
of the building, as if you walked in and out of a coffee shop. There was absolutely
no security. Fast forward 20-30 years, the US Embassy is now located outside
the city in a double walled compound closely resembling your typical state
prison.

I do not know how and why has the USA become such a paranoid society but,
my friends, it does not look good.




KateWest
Leave it to "security experts" to turn the Constitution and Amendments upside down.

The 4th guarantees that a person and their personal effects shall be free of search or seizure unless a warrant signed by a judge issues.

Now, just being and American citizen, subjects one to automatic strip search, the image of your naked figure retained, your private parts handled, in any of at least 14 airports abroad.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Illegal, unconstitutional, in contradiction to all that we are as Americans, and hundreds of years of law and jurisprudence.




WalkerChicago, IL
The sun never sets on the American Empire.




Cave CanemWestern Civilization
There was a news story several years ago which described the reduction of foreign tourism to the U.S. was the result, in part, of the reception foreign nationals had received from the customs/Immigration officials who confront visitors when they arrive at American airports.

Talk about the cost of terrorism?




Steve DentelNewark,DE
Pay attention. This is not an Obama program; it was begun in 1986.





CedarglenUSA
In a perfect world, sure. I have my doubts about this foreign port examinaton program. Gun-toting U.S. officers on forighn soil is always going to be a sore spot. Do gate and baggage inspectors really need to be armed? Probably not. Next, let's look at the other side of the coin. Israel's its flag carrier, El Al are well known for their air transport security practices. How much do we allow them to do at U.S. ports of embarkation? Do we allow their officers to be armed? What about other nations of the First World? Do we - or would we permit Irish or Bitish officers to operate their own pre-flight security program, with or without armed officers, in our airports? I think not. If the U.S. has its own pre-boarding screening in operations in x-number of countries, how many of those same nations are allowed to operate a similar operation in U.S. airports? None to darn few as I understand it. WHIle most are probably not interested, I suspect that Department of State and others would refuse to grant such privlidges to any nation. They would have absolute fits trying to make it work. Still, DOS puts the squeeze on many nations to allow this sort of thing, but only on a unilateral basis. We probably have some bilateral arrangements with Canada that serve high-traffic crossing points and ports. but beyond that, I've never heard of it. And I don't think our government would tolerate anyone else's armed officers in our airports. So why the disconnect? What am I missing




Steve DentelNewark,DE
Take the logical and eventual extension of this, by combining with a government sanctioned stop and frisk policy from New York, and the claimed "right" of the U.S. military to apprehend a perceived enemy of the state anywhere in the world. Combine it with the diplomatic leverage of the U.S., and we'll have bands of U.S. soldiers roving in foreign cities arresting terrorists and tourists as they please, sanctioned by the local governments. Imagine how safe we would feel.






Adam WesleyIowa
I recently flew back to the U.S. from Madrid. I had to go through one of the additional security checks at Madrid's airport (after going through the standard security checks for all passengers.)
When I arrived in the U.S., at Dulles Airport, I had to go through yet another security check in order to make my connecting domestic flight.

3 separate, essentially identical security checks on one trip, without ever leaving a secure area.

I have never seen a bigger charade.




PBCA
A few years ago, flying back from Frankfurt, they confiscated and reprimanded me for having a nail clipper with a file in my carry on. This was at the extra security for US bound planes. Guess what they were selling in flight duty free shop. Yes , a manicure set with an extra large nail file. No wonder the TSA is hated.

And not every terrorist is foreign based. There is plenty of homegrown ones. Just waiting for similar screenings at the state borders to come up.




MichaelDunhamMorelia, MX
Here in Mexico, the security processes have been specified by the US and the inspectors have been trained by US personnel for some time. While there may be less reliance on technology, the searches are just as complete as they are at any US airport. I know because I was involved in the training for the rollout of the US airport security measures.

Regardless, we go back through the security gaunlet again when we reach the US. I really don't believe the US can deal with all the problems that placing security personnel in even the majority of foreign airports would bring up with host governments. I'm certain the cost would be very hard to justify. In effect, the US would be pushing the edge of its border to every foreign entry to the system. At some point, we have to be honest with the people using the airlines and say there is no perfect secuity. The attempts to make airline security appear "more perfect" are simply expensive security theater to make people feel safer.


bergamoitaly
FLAG
what kind of threats from al qaida? I am afraid it is only a matter of USA ubris, other countries' timidity and big bucks to be made. Obama could not have been a greater disappointment than he has been.

Some of today's questions arrive in French

Screams in Time

Karen GarciaNew Paltz, NY

A first step toward reversing the "degradation of our economic discourse" would be to put the Rupert Murdoch Lie Machine out of business, via the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Fox News and the Republican Party are joint partners in our rapid descent into a feudal state. Factor in Grover Norquist and his no-tax pledge, and our democracy is gurgling its last gasp in a bathtub full of fascist slime.

Easier said than done, of course. Rather than condemn Republicans for the seditionists they are, too many centrist cultists seem only too eager to negotiate and play along. Even Nancy Pelosi, erstwhile champion of the New Deal, is said to be open to cutting Social Security in some sort of Grand Bargain from hell. Ron Wyden (D-OR) is partnering with gerontophobe Paul Ryan to make the destruction of Medicare seem cheerful and palatable. Not one financial fraudster has been prosecuted, Where is the legislation for a living wage? Where is the Fed chairman doing something about employment? Where is a true progressive tax system, including a total scrap of the FICA cap?

It has gotten so bad that some anonymous billionaire just paid almost $120 million for the iconic "The Scream" painting. The irony of a plutocrat owning an artwork portraying human misery and dread was not lost on the Occupiers and locked-out Teamsters protesting outside Sotheby's Wednesday night.

Oligarchs hate being hated, so keep it up. March, mic check, scream.

http://kmgarcia2000.blogspot.com/

they'll take us to no limit

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Günter Grass

Was gesagt werden muss

Warum schweige ich, verschweige zu lange,
was offensichtlich ist und in Planspielen
geübt wurde, an deren Ende als Überlebende
wir allenfalls Fußnoten sind.
Es ist das behauptete Recht auf den Erstschlag,
der das von einem Maulhelden unterjochte
und zum organisierten Jubel gelenkte
iranische Volk auslöschen könnte,
weil in dessen Machtbereich der Bau
einer Atombombe vermutet wird.

Doch warum untersage ich mir,
jenes andere Land beim Namen zu nennen,
in dem seit Jahren - wenn auch geheimgehalten -
ein wachsend nukleares Potential verfügbar
aber außer Kontrolle, weil keiner Prüfung
zugänglich ist?

Das allgemeine Verschweigen dieses Tatbestandes,
dem sich mein Schweigen untergeordnet hat,
empfinde ich als belastende Lüge
und Zwang, der Strafe in Aussicht stellt,
sobald er mißachtet wird;
das Verdikt "Antisemitismus" ist geläufig.

Jetzt aber, weil aus meinem Land,
das von ureigenen Verbrechen,
die ohne Vergleich sind,
Mal um Mal eingeholt und zur Rede gestellt wird,
wiederum und rein geschäftsmäßig, wenn auch
mit flinker Lippe als Wiedergutmachung deklariert,
ein weiteres U-Boot nach Israel
geliefert werden soll, dessen Spezialität
darin besteht, allesvernichtende Sprengköpfe
dorthin lenken zu können, wo die Existenz
einer einzigen Atombombe unbewiesen ist,
doch als Befürchtung von Beweiskraft sein will,
sage ich, was gesagt werden muß.
Warum aber schwieg ich bislang?
Weil ich meinte, meine Herkunft,
die von nie zu tilgendem Makel behaftet ist,
verbiete, diese Tatsache als ausgesprochene Wahrheit
dem Land Israel, dem ich verbunden bin
und bleiben will, zuzumuten.
Warum sage ich jetzt erst,
gealtert und mit letzter Tinte:
Die Atommacht Israel gefährdet
den ohnehin brüchigen Weltfrieden?
Weil gesagt werden muß,
was schon morgen zu spät sein könnte;
auch weil wir - als Deutsche belastet genug -
Zulieferer eines Verbrechens werden könnten,
das voraussehbar ist, weshalb unsere Mitschuld
durch keine der üblichen Ausreden
zu tilgen wäre.
Und zugegeben: ich schweige nicht mehr,
weil ich der Heuchelei des Westens
überdrüssig bin; zudem ist zu hoffen,
es mögen sich viele vom Schweigen befreien,
den Verursacher der erkennbaren Gefahr
zum Verzicht auf Gewalt auffordern und
gleichfalls darauf bestehen,
daß eine unbehinderte und permanente Kontrolle
des israelischen atomaren Potentials
und der iranischen Atomanlagen
durch eine internationale Instanz
von den Regierungen beider Länder zugelassen wird.
Nur so ist allen, den Israelis und Palästinensern,
mehr noch, allen Menschen, die in dieser
vom Wahn okkupierten Region
dicht bei dicht verfeindet leben
und letztlich auch uns zu helfen.
_________________________




What must be said


Why I am silent, silent for too much time,
how much is clear and we made it
in war games, where, as survivors,
we are just the footnotes.

That is the claimed right to the formal preventive aggression
which could erase the Iranian people
dominated by a bouncer and moved to an organized jubilation,
because in the area of his competence there is
the construction of the atomic bomb.

And then why do I avoid myself
to call the other country with its name,
where since years – even if secretly covered -
there is an increasing nuclear power,
without control, because unreachable
by every inspection?

I feel the everybody silence on this state of affairs,
which my silence is slave to,
as an oppressive lie and an inhibition that presents punishment
we don’t pay attention to;
the verdict “anti-Semitism” is common.

Now, since my country,
from time to time touched by unique and exclusive crimes,
obliged to justify itself,
again for pure business aims - even if
with fast tongue we call it “reparation” -
should deliver another submarine to Israel,
with the specialty of addressing
annihilating warheads where the
existence of one atomic bomb is not proved
but it wants evidence as a scarecrow,

I say what must be said.

Why did I stay silent until now?
Because the thought about my origin,
burdened by an unclearing stain,
had avoiding to wait this fact
like a truth declared by the State of Israel
that I want to be connected to.

Why did I say it only now,
old and with the last ink:
the nuclear power of Israel
threat the world peace?

Because it must be said
what tomorrow will be too late;
Because - as Germans and with
enough faults on the back -
we might also become deliverers of a predictable
crime, and no excuse would erase our complicity.

And I admit: I won’t be silent
because I had enough of the Western hypocrisy;
Because I wish that many will want
to get rid of the silence,
exhorting the cause of a recognizable
risk to the abdication, asking that a free and permanent control
of the Israel atomic power
and the Iran nuclear bases
will be made by both the governments
with an international supervision.

Only in this way, Israelis, Palestinians, and everybody,
all people living hostile face to face in that
country occupied by the craziness,
will have a way out,
so us too.



Translation by Alessandro Ghebreigziabiher





_________________





another attempt at translating to English. Less literal but perhaps more to the point.







What must be said
Why have I been silent, silent for so long?,
Our generals have gamed it out,
Confident the west will survive.
We people have not even been considered.

What is this right to “preventive war”?
A war that could erase the Iranian people.
Dominated by it’s neighbor, pulsing with righteousness
Smug in the fact that it is they, not Iran,
Who have the Bomb.

Why have I so far avoided to identify Israel by it’s name?,
Israel and it’s ever increasing nuclear arsenal,
Beyond reproach, Uncontrolled, uninspected.

We all know these things
Yet we all remain silent, fearful of being labeled:
anti-Semitic
hateful
worse

Considering Germany’s past these labels stick
So we call is “business”, “reparation” take your pick,
As we deliver yet another submarine.
As we provide to Israel the means to deliver annihilation.
I say what must be said.

Why did I stay silent until now?
Because I’m German, of course.
I’m tainted by a stain I cannot wash out
I’m silent because I want so badly to make it right
To put my sins in the past and leave them silently there.

Why did I wait to say it until now?
And write these words with the last of my ink?
Declaring that Israel threatens world peace?
Because it is true and it must be said,
Tomorrow will be too late.

We Germans now carry a new burden of sin on our shoulders
Through the weapons we have sold
We are helping to carry out this foreseeable tragedy
No excuse will remove our stain of complicity.

It must be said. I won’t be silent
I’ve had enough of the hypocrisy;
Please shed the silence with me,
The consequences are all too predictable.
It’s time to demand free and permanent control
of BOTH Israel’s nuclear arsenal
AND Iran’s nuclear facilities
enforced with international supervision.

It’s the only way, in a land convulsed with insanity,
Israelis, Palestinians, everybody, will survive.
And we too, will survive.




TexicanAustin
The truth usually does provoke intense criticism.
April 4, 2012 at 2:07 p.m.RECOMMENDED22

aboParis
Well it *is* hypocritical of the West to complain about Iran and not Israel. And Israel *is* probably the greatest threat in the Middle East to world peace. We will get nowhere if every time a person who makes true statements get shouted down.
April 4, 2012 at 9:07 p.m.RECOMMENDED12

MadridMadrid
Grass just said what every person the world over is thinking-- the truth for the New York elite hurts, but someone had to say it. The world is scared not of Iran (which spends less on defense than Singapore) but ISRAEL, which Martin Van Creveld, eminent Israeli military historian, says is the 2nd or 3rd strongest nuclear power in the world and which, according to him, has nuclear weapons aimed at every capital in the world including Rome.
April 4, 2012 at 9:07 p.m.RECOMMENDED10

MadridMadrid
I don't believe the NYT's will publish my earlier note about how Grass's poem reflects how most of the world sees Israel... how the world is scared of Israel, not Iran. In that note, I cited eminent Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld talking about Israel's nuclear policy, a statement for which the NYT's monitors probably censored my post. So here is the direct quote along with the source so that they have no reason to censor me. Van Creveld states of the Israeli military, "We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force…. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/sep/21/israelandthepalestinians.boo...

That is why most of the world is scared of Israel, and not Iran, which spends less on defense that Singapore.
April 4, 2012 at 9:07 p.m.RECOMMENDED8

Ahmed AliHamburg, Germany
Knowing the many peace-loving and level-headed Israelis personally, I am sure that the staunchest support for Gunter
Grass will eventually come from within Israel. Only peace within and with its neighbors is the real guarantee of Israel's continued existence and its prosperity. Live and Let Live! This is as simple as that.

The reality on the ground is that Israel is the only (covert) nuclear power in that region. Other states which do not have these weapons of mass destruction must be protected. Using his poetic license, Gunter Grass has warned against a political course at the end of which a Holocaust is the only outcome. The sufferings of the European Jews, in particular the collective pain and uprooting endured by them under the Nazi regime, for which the present generation in Germany, including Gunter Grass, feels a collective guilt, and rightly so, is all the more reason why a collective punishment must never be initiated by Israel. Gunter Grass said what must have been said a long time ago. I fully understand his anguish. Like him, I also have very dear Jewish friends in Israel, but
it is absolutely essential to stem the current Iranian-Israeli rhetoric
before it spirals out of hand.
April 4, 2012 at 9:07 p.m.RECOMMENDED7

TenicanKnoxville
Thank you Mr Grass. Well done. You have now made my Honor List.
April 4, 2012 at 9:15 p.m.RECOMMENDED4

AFHLower East Side
would be nice if you included a link to an english translation.
April 4, 2012 at 9:07 p.m.RECOMMENDED4

PotterBoylston, MA
Perhaps some Israeli's are looking for this, need it, around this time of year--part of the business of claiming victimhood even when they have the upper hand.

I'd like to read the poem in English. If the NYTimes does not feel it can publish it, that would be a disappointment.
April 4, 2012 at 9:15 p.m.RECOMMENDED3

AMartinBoston
Ok, get ready for the onslaught of nasty comments from Israel haters. Perish the thought that they would spill ink criticizing truly tyrannical regimes of this world like Syria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Myanmar, China, Venezuela, Cuba, Congo Afghanistan, Algeria, Belarus, Cambodia, Chad...so many more...and oh yes, Iran! And yet they pick on the one country in the Mideast where gays, women, minorities of all sorts actually have a decent life. Can anyone explain this continuous, bizarre, obsessive focus on Israel??
April 4, 2012 at 9:15 p.m.RECOMMENDED3

reneenyc
"Israel possesses between 75-400 nuclear warheads."
April 4, 2012 at 9:07 p.m.RECOMMENDED3

LaurentIndia
Why can't the NYT publish an english translation of the poem?
April 4, 2012 at 9:15 p.m.RECOMMENDED2

Markus310773Munich, Germany
One problem is that Mr. Grass has had problems with his own history. He has often attacked others for their history but only recently admitted to his membership in the Waffen SS.

In his biography he tried to equate 6 million dead Jews with alleged 6 million dead German soldiers (in the Soviet Union). 6 minus 6 is zero. So he implied that Germans have paid their due for the Holocaust.

First of all, however, the number was completely made up. Appr. 1.1 million German soldiers died in the Soviet Union. Second of all, it was appaling to equate dead woman, children and men with soldiers who go to war.

This is but one example of his selective "knowledge" about history.

The manner and the words he used in the article had similarities to Nazi speeches.

Mr. Grass is growing old. He came from an illeterate family. Thus he was maybe not able to intellectually counter Nazi propaganda in his youth.

I am German. We know why we critisize Günter Grass. We understand the subtle hints in his "poem".