Dennis Kucinich on Hardball 02/26/09
Friday, February 27, 2009
Politics of the Plate: The Price of Tomatoes
Barry Estabrook
Driving from Naples, Florida, the nation’s second-wealthiest metropolitan area, to Immokalee takes less than an hour on a straight road. You pass houses that sell for an average of $1.4 million, shopping malls anchored by Tiffany’s and Saks Fifth Avenue, manicured golf courses. Eventually, gated communities with names like Monaco Beach Club and Imperial Golf Estates give way to modest ranches, and the highway shrivels from six lanes to two. Through the scruffy palmettos, you glimpse flat, sandy tomato fields shimmering in the broiling sun. Rounding a long curve, you enter Immokalee. The heart of town is a nine-block grid of dusty, potholed streets lined by boarded-up bars and bodegas, peeling shacks, and sagging, mildew-streaked house trailers. Mongrel dogs snooze in the shade, scrawny chickens peck in yards. Just off the main drag, vultures squabble over roadkill. Immokalee’s population is 70 percent Latino. Per capita income is only $8,500 a year. One third of the families in this city of nearly 25,000 live below the poverty line. Over one third of the children drop out before graduating from high school.
Link to con.
Barry Estabrook
Driving from Naples, Florida, the nation’s second-wealthiest metropolitan area, to Immokalee takes less than an hour on a straight road. You pass houses that sell for an average of $1.4 million, shopping malls anchored by Tiffany’s and Saks Fifth Avenue, manicured golf courses. Eventually, gated communities with names like Monaco Beach Club and Imperial Golf Estates give way to modest ranches, and the highway shrivels from six lanes to two. Through the scruffy palmettos, you glimpse flat, sandy tomato fields shimmering in the broiling sun. Rounding a long curve, you enter Immokalee. The heart of town is a nine-block grid of dusty, potholed streets lined by boarded-up bars and bodegas, peeling shacks, and sagging, mildew-streaked house trailers. Mongrel dogs snooze in the shade, scrawny chickens peck in yards. Just off the main drag, vultures squabble over roadkill. Immokalee’s population is 70 percent Latino. Per capita income is only $8,500 a year. One third of the families in this city of nearly 25,000 live below the poverty line. Over one third of the children drop out before graduating from high school.
Link to con.
Climate of Change
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Elections have consequences. President Obama’s new budget represents a huge break, not just with the policies of the past eight years, but with policy trends over the past 30 years. If he can get anything like the plan he announced on Thursday through Congress, he will set America on a fundamentally new course.
The budget will, among other things, come as a huge relief to Democrats who were starting to feel a bit of postpartisan depression. The stimulus bill that Congress passed may have been too weak and too focused on tax cuts. The administration’s refusal to get tough on the banks may be deeply disappointing. But fears that Mr. Obama would sacrifice progressive priorities in his budget plans, and satisfy himself with fiddling around the edges of the tax system, have now been banished.
For this budget allocates $634 billion over the next decade for health reform. That’s not enough to pay for universal coverage, but it’s an impressive start. And Mr. Obama plans to pay for health reform, not just with higher taxes on the affluent, but by putting a halt to the creeping privatization of Medicare, eliminating overpayments to insurance companies.
Link to con.
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Elections have consequences. President Obama’s new budget represents a huge break, not just with the policies of the past eight years, but with policy trends over the past 30 years. If he can get anything like the plan he announced on Thursday through Congress, he will set America on a fundamentally new course.
The budget will, among other things, come as a huge relief to Democrats who were starting to feel a bit of postpartisan depression. The stimulus bill that Congress passed may have been too weak and too focused on tax cuts. The administration’s refusal to get tough on the banks may be deeply disappointing. But fears that Mr. Obama would sacrifice progressive priorities in his budget plans, and satisfy himself with fiddling around the edges of the tax system, have now been banished.
For this budget allocates $634 billion over the next decade for health reform. That’s not enough to pay for universal coverage, but it’s an impressive start. And Mr. Obama plans to pay for health reform, not just with higher taxes on the affluent, but by putting a halt to the creeping privatization of Medicare, eliminating overpayments to insurance companies.
Link to con.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
In Loneliness, Immigrants Tend the Flock
Somewhere in Wyoming’s vast, barren sagebrush country, Lorenzo Cortez Vargas pokes his head out of the rickety camper where he lives and stares into the dirt. Mr. Vargas, a sheepherder from Chile, spends his days and nights on lonesome stretches of the Rockies, driving 2,000 sheep across Colorado and Wyoming as part of a federal temporary worker program he signed up for more than a year ago.
But like the other sheepherders, or “borregueros,” in the West, Mr. Vargas has barely any contact with his new country, where he earns $750 a month for working round the clock without a day off. He lives alone in the crude 5-foot-by-10-foot “campito” with no running water, toilet or electricity, save for a car battery he has rigged to a small radio. A sputtering wood-burning stove is his only source of heat in winter, a collection of faded telephone cards his only connection to home.
Link to con.
Somewhere in Wyoming’s vast, barren sagebrush country, Lorenzo Cortez Vargas pokes his head out of the rickety camper where he lives and stares into the dirt. Mr. Vargas, a sheepherder from Chile, spends his days and nights on lonesome stretches of the Rockies, driving 2,000 sheep across Colorado and Wyoming as part of a federal temporary worker program he signed up for more than a year ago.
But like the other sheepherders, or “borregueros,” in the West, Mr. Vargas has barely any contact with his new country, where he earns $750 a month for working round the clock without a day off. He lives alone in the crude 5-foot-by-10-foot “campito” with no running water, toilet or electricity, save for a car battery he has rigged to a small radio. A sputtering wood-burning stove is his only source of heat in winter, a collection of faded telephone cards his only connection to home.
Link to con.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Jailing Kids for Cash
By Amy Goodman
As many as 5,000 children in Pennsylvania have been found guilty, and up to 2,000 of them jailed, by two corrupt judges who received kickbacks from the builders and owners of private prison facilities that benefited. The two judges pleaded guilty in a stunning case of greed and corruption that is still unfolding. Judges Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. and Michael T. Conahan received $2.6 million in kickbacks while imprisoning children who often had no access to a lawyer. The case offers an extraordinary glimpse into the shameful private prison industry that is flourishing in the United States.
Take the story of Jamie Quinn. When she was 14 years old, she was imprisoned for almost a year. Jamie, now 18, described the incident that led to her incarceration:
“I got into an argument with one of my friends. And all that happened was just a basic fight. She slapped me in the face, and I did the same thing back. There [were] no marks, no witnesses, nothing. It was just her word against my word.”
Jamie was placed in one of the two controversial facilities, PA Child Care, then bounced around to several other locations. The 11-month imprisonment had a devastating impact on her. She told me: “People looked at me different when I came out, thought I was a bad person, because I was gone for so long. My family started splitting up ... because I was away and got locked up. I’m still struggling in school, because the schooling system in facilities like these places [are] just horrible.”
Link to con.
By Amy Goodman
As many as 5,000 children in Pennsylvania have been found guilty, and up to 2,000 of them jailed, by two corrupt judges who received kickbacks from the builders and owners of private prison facilities that benefited. The two judges pleaded guilty in a stunning case of greed and corruption that is still unfolding. Judges Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. and Michael T. Conahan received $2.6 million in kickbacks while imprisoning children who often had no access to a lawyer. The case offers an extraordinary glimpse into the shameful private prison industry that is flourishing in the United States.
Take the story of Jamie Quinn. When she was 14 years old, she was imprisoned for almost a year. Jamie, now 18, described the incident that led to her incarceration:
“I got into an argument with one of my friends. And all that happened was just a basic fight. She slapped me in the face, and I did the same thing back. There [were] no marks, no witnesses, nothing. It was just her word against my word.”
Jamie was placed in one of the two controversial facilities, PA Child Care, then bounced around to several other locations. The 11-month imprisonment had a devastating impact on her. She told me: “People looked at me different when I came out, thought I was a bad person, because I was gone for so long. My family started splitting up ... because I was away and got locked up. I’m still struggling in school, because the schooling system in facilities like these places [are] just horrible.”
Link to con.
Burning Questions: What Does Economic "Recovery" Mean on an Extreme Weather Planet?
by Tom Engelhardt
It turns out that you don't want to be a former city dweller in rural parts of southernmost Australia, a stalk of wheat in China or Iraq, a soybean in Argentina, an almond or grape in northern California, a cow in Texas, or almost anything in parts of east Africa right now. Let me explain.
As anyone who has turned on the prime-time TV news these last weeks knows, southeastern Australia has been burning up. It's already dry climate has been growing ever hotter. "The great drying," Australian environmental scientist Tim Flannery calls it. At its epicenter, Melbourne recorded its hottest day ever this month at a sweltering 115.5 degrees, while temperatures soared even higher in the surrounding countryside. After more than a decade of drought, followed by the lowest rainfall on record, the eucalyptus forests are now burning. To be exact, they are now pouring vast quantities of stored carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas considered largely responsible for global warming, into the atmosphere.
In fact, everything's been burning there. Huge sheets of flame, possibly aided and abetted by arsonists, tore through whole towns. More than 180 people are dead and thousands homeless. Flannery, who has written eloquently about global warming, drove through the fire belt, and reported:
Link to con.
by Tom Engelhardt
It turns out that you don't want to be a former city dweller in rural parts of southernmost Australia, a stalk of wheat in China or Iraq, a soybean in Argentina, an almond or grape in northern California, a cow in Texas, or almost anything in parts of east Africa right now. Let me explain.
As anyone who has turned on the prime-time TV news these last weeks knows, southeastern Australia has been burning up. It's already dry climate has been growing ever hotter. "The great drying," Australian environmental scientist Tim Flannery calls it. At its epicenter, Melbourne recorded its hottest day ever this month at a sweltering 115.5 degrees, while temperatures soared even higher in the surrounding countryside. After more than a decade of drought, followed by the lowest rainfall on record, the eucalyptus forests are now burning. To be exact, they are now pouring vast quantities of stored carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas considered largely responsible for global warming, into the atmosphere.
In fact, everything's been burning there. Huge sheets of flame, possibly aided and abetted by arsonists, tore through whole towns. More than 180 people are dead and thousands homeless. Flannery, who has written eloquently about global warming, drove through the fire belt, and reported:
Link to con.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
(I hate Fox, but I like the guy he interrogates. "interviews". Stick with it till the end, the DSA directer has some good points....and ignore the talking head, Beck)(O and by the way as much as I think socialism could help this country, we are not heading towards socialism in this country....just catching up to the rest of the world when it comes to health, etc.)
Glenn Beck - Road to Socialism: Democratic Socialists of America
Glenn Beck - Road to Socialism: Democratic Socialists of America
Monday, February 16, 2009
The return of Marx
The ideas of Karl Marx--that class society creates great wealth for the few at the expense of the many--ring truer every day. Brian Jones examines Marx's revolutionary ideas in this first of three articles.
IN THE last 150 years of U.S. history, you can't point to a generation whose most active, radical layers have not been drawn to the ideas of Karl Marx. This was true of the abolitionist movement (Marxist immigrants even fought with the Northern Army in the Civil War), the early pioneers of our labor movement, the hundreds of thousands (if not millions) who passed through Socialist and Communist Parties in the first half of the 20th century, and of the many thousands who joined the Black Panther Party and other parties that declared themselves against capitalism and in favor of socialism in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Millions of people around the world have sought, from the Marxist tradition, a way to win a different kind of society free of poverty, oppression and war. That rather hopeful premise--that a different kind of world is actually possible--goes a long way toward explaining how it could be that the only book that can compete (in terms of paid sales) with the Bible is the Communist Manifesto.
Link to con.
The ideas of Karl Marx--that class society creates great wealth for the few at the expense of the many--ring truer every day. Brian Jones examines Marx's revolutionary ideas in this first of three articles.
IN THE last 150 years of U.S. history, you can't point to a generation whose most active, radical layers have not been drawn to the ideas of Karl Marx. This was true of the abolitionist movement (Marxist immigrants even fought with the Northern Army in the Civil War), the early pioneers of our labor movement, the hundreds of thousands (if not millions) who passed through Socialist and Communist Parties in the first half of the 20th century, and of the many thousands who joined the Black Panther Party and other parties that declared themselves against capitalism and in favor of socialism in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Millions of people around the world have sought, from the Marxist tradition, a way to win a different kind of society free of poverty, oppression and war. That rather hopeful premise--that a different kind of world is actually possible--goes a long way toward explaining how it could be that the only book that can compete (in terms of paid sales) with the Bible is the Communist Manifesto.
Link to con.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Populism and Its Long-Term Consequences
Venezuela Beyond the Referendum
By NIKOLAS KOZLOFF
In late 2007, Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez narrowly lost a vote on a constitutional referendum which would have allowed the President to run again in future elections. Hardly discouraged, he pressed forward. On Sunday, people will vote on a similar referendum and in the event that Chávez wins, he could stand for reelection in 2012.
That’s an outcome which the opposition seeks to avoid at all costs. What Chávez really wants, the opposition claims, is to become a fledgling tyrant and to institutionalize his own personal power. Originally elected in 1998, Chávez is now serving his third term in office. While pushing his referendum, the Venezuelan President has said that he needs more time in office in order to secure vital socialist reforms.
For Chávez, holding the referendum is a big gamble. If he should lose on Sunday, the opposition will be able to claim its second straight victory. Already, the right is feeling more emboldened following its decent showing in local elections last year. As a result, victory on Sunday might lead the opposition to call for a presidential recall in 2010.
Link to con.
Venezuela Beyond the Referendum
By NIKOLAS KOZLOFF
In late 2007, Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez narrowly lost a vote on a constitutional referendum which would have allowed the President to run again in future elections. Hardly discouraged, he pressed forward. On Sunday, people will vote on a similar referendum and in the event that Chávez wins, he could stand for reelection in 2012.
That’s an outcome which the opposition seeks to avoid at all costs. What Chávez really wants, the opposition claims, is to become a fledgling tyrant and to institutionalize his own personal power. Originally elected in 1998, Chávez is now serving his third term in office. While pushing his referendum, the Venezuelan President has said that he needs more time in office in order to secure vital socialist reforms.
For Chávez, holding the referendum is a big gamble. If he should lose on Sunday, the opposition will be able to claim its second straight victory. Already, the right is feeling more emboldened following its decent showing in local elections last year. As a result, victory on Sunday might lead the opposition to call for a presidential recall in 2010.
Link to con.
Apartheid for the undocumented in Arizona
Brian Tierney reports on the latest outrage committed by racist Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
AS BARACK Obama was ordering the closure of the U.S. prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the sheriff of Arizona's largest county was busy opening a new Guantánamo inside the U.S. Joe Arpaio, the notoriously anti-immigrant sheriff of Maricopa County, the fourth-largest in the country, ordered undocumented prisoners from the county jail separated--and relegated to an outdoor "Tent City" prison camp.
Arpaio, who once paraded shackled inmates in pink underwear for the purpose of publicly humiliating them, forced 220 undocumented prisoners to march to his modern-day prison camp of canvas tents in the middle of the Arizona desert--under the watch of armed guards and a cordon of televisions cameras.
Link to con.
Brian Tierney reports on the latest outrage committed by racist Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
AS BARACK Obama was ordering the closure of the U.S. prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the sheriff of Arizona's largest county was busy opening a new Guantánamo inside the U.S. Joe Arpaio, the notoriously anti-immigrant sheriff of Maricopa County, the fourth-largest in the country, ordered undocumented prisoners from the county jail separated--and relegated to an outdoor "Tent City" prison camp.
Arpaio, who once paraded shackled inmates in pink underwear for the purpose of publicly humiliating them, forced 220 undocumented prisoners to march to his modern-day prison camp of canvas tents in the middle of the Arizona desert--under the watch of armed guards and a cordon of televisions cameras.
Link to con.
Israel lurches further right
Eric Ruder explains the frightening outcome of Israel's February 10 elections.
THE OUTCOME of Israel's February 10 elections represents a further move to the right, with the next government almost certain to be headed by the Likud Party's Benjamin Netanyahu, who distinguished himself in the week before the election by criticizing the current government for not going far enough in its 22-day massacre of Palestinians in Gaza. Even more alarming, it appears that Netanyahu's ability to form a government will depend on the inclusion of proto-fascist Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Beitenu party.
Lieberman has called for the 1.5 million Palestinians living in Israel to take an oath of loyalty to the Jewish state or be stripped of their citizenship. And in the wake of Israel's 2006 war on Lebanon, Lieberman called for the execution of Arab members of Israel's Knesset (parliament) who had met with "enemies of Israel," such as Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Palestinian Hamas organization.
Link to con.
Eric Ruder explains the frightening outcome of Israel's February 10 elections.
THE OUTCOME of Israel's February 10 elections represents a further move to the right, with the next government almost certain to be headed by the Likud Party's Benjamin Netanyahu, who distinguished himself in the week before the election by criticizing the current government for not going far enough in its 22-day massacre of Palestinians in Gaza. Even more alarming, it appears that Netanyahu's ability to form a government will depend on the inclusion of proto-fascist Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Beitenu party.
Lieberman has called for the 1.5 million Palestinians living in Israel to take an oath of loyalty to the Jewish state or be stripped of their citizenship. And in the wake of Israel's 2006 war on Lebanon, Lieberman called for the execution of Arab members of Israel's Knesset (parliament) who had met with "enemies of Israel," such as Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Palestinian Hamas organization.
Link to con.
Revolt is in the air
The worst economic crisis since the Great Depression is throwing countries across Europe into turmoil--and spurring struggles unseen in years. Eric Ruder looks at what the future may hold.
THE FINANCIAL turmoil that began in the summer of 2007 in the U.S. is spreading around the globe with frightening speed and devastating consequences for working people. The bursting of the bubble in the U.S. housing market in the summer of 2007 was the catalyst for full-blown economic crisis in country after country in Europe.
Now, the economic disaster is sparking mass protest and revolt on a scale not seen in two decades. Britain's Guardian newspaper described the new political reality in a January 31 article titled "Governments across Europe tremble as angry people take to the streets." It begins:
Link to con.
The worst economic crisis since the Great Depression is throwing countries across Europe into turmoil--and spurring struggles unseen in years. Eric Ruder looks at what the future may hold.
THE FINANCIAL turmoil that began in the summer of 2007 in the U.S. is spreading around the globe with frightening speed and devastating consequences for working people. The bursting of the bubble in the U.S. housing market in the summer of 2007 was the catalyst for full-blown economic crisis in country after country in Europe.
Now, the economic disaster is sparking mass protest and revolt on a scale not seen in two decades. Britain's Guardian newspaper described the new political reality in a January 31 article titled "Governments across Europe tremble as angry people take to the streets." It begins:
Link to con.
Over near-unanimous Republican opposition
US Congress passes economic stimulus bill
By Patrick Martin
The US Congress voted Friday evening to approve a $787 billion economic stimulus bill sought by the Obama administration and the congressional Democratic leadership. The legislation passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 246 to 183, with seven Democrats joining a unanimous Republican caucus to oppose the bill.
The Senate passed the bill late Friday by a margin of 60 to 38, with three Republicans joining 55 Democrats and two independents. The 60 votes was the bare minimum required to overcome a Republican filibuster. Among those voting against the bill was Republican Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, who announced the day before that he was withdrawing as Obama's nominee to be secretary of commerce.
Obama trumpeted the nomination last week as proof that he was establishing a bipartisan administration, with Gregg joining Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood as Republican cabinet members. Gregg cited the stimulus bill and a conflict over policy at the Census Bureau, which is part of the Department of Commerce, as his reasons for pulling out.
Link to con.
US Congress passes economic stimulus bill
By Patrick Martin
The US Congress voted Friday evening to approve a $787 billion economic stimulus bill sought by the Obama administration and the congressional Democratic leadership. The legislation passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 246 to 183, with seven Democrats joining a unanimous Republican caucus to oppose the bill.
The Senate passed the bill late Friday by a margin of 60 to 38, with three Republicans joining 55 Democrats and two independents. The 60 votes was the bare minimum required to overcome a Republican filibuster. Among those voting against the bill was Republican Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, who announced the day before that he was withdrawing as Obama's nominee to be secretary of commerce.
Obama trumpeted the nomination last week as proof that he was establishing a bipartisan administration, with Gregg joining Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood as Republican cabinet members. Gregg cited the stimulus bill and a conflict over policy at the Census Bureau, which is part of the Department of Commerce, as his reasons for pulling out.
Link to con.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
William Greider on the Democrats' Money Dilemma
William Greider has covered politics from the national capital for The Washington Post, Rolling Stone Magazine, and currently The Nation. Greider's most recent book, Come Home America, examines the implications of our country's predicament. He talks about the Democrats roll in deregulating the financial markets and their current dilemma between representing their funders and their constituents.
William Greider has covered politics from the national capital for The Washington Post, Rolling Stone Magazine, and currently The Nation. Greider's most recent book, Come Home America, examines the implications of our country's predicament. He talks about the Democrats roll in deregulating the financial markets and their current dilemma between representing their funders and their constituents.
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