I've been unemployed since July 2008. My tech job was outsourced to the Philippines. The week before that, my wife had been forced out of her job in retaliation for having reported sexual harassment at one of Wall Street's leading regulatory agencies. I was intrigued when she showed me an article on AlterNet telling about a newly formed Union of the Unemployed formed by the IAM. I joined online.
Then I set out trying to figure out what I had gotten myself into. The union is organized into 6-person Cubes. One could communicate to everyone within a Cube, but all other communication had to be done one-by-one from the membership links. As for what the union was fighting for, the emphasis was on excoriating Jim Bunning for holding up unemployment extensions (which Democratic Party dallying made possible). While there were references to IAM press releases supporting jobs creation, the actual agenda was to support the bill whose heart was giving tax breaks to small businesses so as to encourage them to create jobs (the lowest paying jobs). There was no link for contacting the union.
This weekly diary takes a look at the past week's important news stories from the perspective of our leading editorial cartoonists (including a few foreign ones) with analysis and commentary added in by me.
When evaluating a cartoon, ask yourself these questions:
1. Does a cartoon add to my existing knowledge base and help crystallize my thinking about the issue depicted?
2. Does the cartoonist have any obvious biases that distort reality?
3. Is the cartoonist reflecting prevailing public opinion or trying to shape it?
The answers will help determine the effectiveness of the cartoonist's message.
At a DNC fundraiser last night, President Obama had an interesting exchange with a Democratic organizer about health care reform, wherein he appeared to suggest that Congress could drop the ball and fail to pass a bill--and that voters should judge them harshly if they do.
"[I]t may be that -- you know, if Congress decides -- if Congress decides we're not going to do it, even after all the facts are laid out, all the options are clear, then the American people can make a judgment as to whether this Congress has done the right thing for them or not," Obama said.
Three weeks ago my own brother robbed me of every cent I had left and kicked me out into the street.
I just landed a job with an up and coming start up Progressive Political organization, but the job does not officially begin to pay until the end of February. I will be working on several of their projects as an opposition researcher, writer and reporter, among other things. This is the break that I have been waiting for. They have provided me with a laptop and cell phone, which is why I am able to write now. This helps a great deal, but it does not replace the money that my brother has stolen from me.
So I turn now to you, dearest friends, who are more family to me than my only flesh and blood, in the hopes that you can help me out until this job starts up for me, because my only brother just stole from me the last few dollars I had to my name.
If you are able to, please make a donation to the link below.
I've mentioned this blogger before. I think he's brilliant. I think, in fact, that he's the best single blogger out there.
(Sorry everybody else).
His stuff is so dense, yet so readable, that it's even difficult to blockquote. But I have to try a sample:
As I pointed out in August, public sector spending - and mainly defense spending - has accounted for virtually all of the new job creation in the past 10 years:
The U.S. has largely been financing job creation for ten years. Specifically, as the chief economist for BusinessWeek, Michael Mandel, points out, public spending has accounted for virtually all new job creation in the past 1o years:
Private sector job growth was almost non-existent over the past ten years. Take a look at this horrifying chart:
Between May 1999 and May 2009, employment in the private sector sector only rose by 1.1%, by far the lowest 10-year increase in the post-depression period.
It's impossible to overstate how bad this is. Basically speaking, the private sector job machine has almost completely stalled over the past ten years. Take a look at this chart:
In these times of record unemployment, there are some sectors that CAN"T hire em fast enough! There are hearts and minds to be won -- and YOU just may have the skills to "get er done!"
Just be ready to check your squeamish morality at the door -- afterall DC doesn't run on good intentions. It's more a city of players. Players who know how to twist arms, take names.
(10 pm. This was NPK's and I screwed it up. Apologies. - promoted by ek hornbeck)
I know, I'm the pest who keeps complaining that, for all their heroic posturing, our progressive leaders have been pathetic in refusing to brandish any kind of retaliatory stick while begging the Democratic Party to not turn the healthcare bill into nothing more than the bloody stump of reform. And urging those outraged at those pathetic leaders to start figuring out how to hit the Democratic Party where it hurts.
Then along comes Jane Hamsher. For the record, I had criticized her in my intro to the Full Court Press as one of those progressive leaders who had caved in and was supporting the bill even without the "robust" public option she had once demanded. But then she turned around and came out 4-square for killing the Senate bill. And then, a few days ago, she joined with notorious scoundrel Grover Norquist to demand an investigation of Rahm Emmanuel for malfeasance regarding his relationship with Freddie Mac.
Well, I gotta say the lady's got guts.
Her move follows one or both of two tracks. It could be seen as an innocent exercise in good government. Or it could be a counterpunch to the way Rahm and the White House have viciously sidelined progressives around, well, everything. Both are valid.
But working with Norquist! the Dems cry while clutching at their smelling salts. Okay, let's look at the Democrats' record. The Stupak amendment passed mostly with Republican votes. And then when the House Democrats passed its Stupak-laden bill, they made Stupak their own. They passed a Republican measure.
So the Obamacrats cry "teabagger!" Jane Hamsher is getting her money from Jack Abramoff! Next thing you know, she'll be leading teabagger rallies. The charges are nonsense, but the underlying politic is worth some thought.
Make no mistake, the teabagger movement is a fascist-led, corporate-funded reactionary movement. But its success is in part a monument to progressive failure. While progressives had dreams of Obama-plums dancing in their heads, they ignored their working class base, which was outraged that Wall Street was getting bailed out while they were losing their homes. They distrust the Fed. They fear a distant government that might do things like, oh, mandating people to buy insurance they can't afford. The teabaggers were able to merge this righteous anger with backward racist and sexist currents in the American people. Because progressives were asleep at the wheel!
So the bad news is I lost my job. The good news is, well, coming soon, I guess. If anyone knows of quality employment that can be found in NYC, please let me know about it in the comments below.
My little adventure as a Paid Progressive Activist (Fundraising) has come to an end because I didn't make my quotas.
Our daily quotas were $125 a day or $625 a week. Mind you, we're standing outside, freezing our asses off while busy NYers scuttle by, bracing themselves against the wind. It is not easy to ask for charitable donations in such conditions. If you make your quota you get paid $375 for the week plus bonuses. If not, you get min. wage. I raised $525 in 5 days, but it broke down to 28 the first day, 10 the second, 425 the 3rd, 5 on the fourth and 20 on the last, so I was dismissed. I raised $525 and will get paid min. wage at 40 hours for the week. It seems a neat little scam, don't it? You can pay people min. wage then sack them the first week whether they are performing or not. Sucks. At least I'll get that one pay check though.
Frankly, I am running out of hope for both myself and the political/economic system that is broken beyond repair.
Predictions for what 2010 will bring were aplenty yesterday at The Economist's summit in Washington, DC celebrating the release of its World in 2010 edition. The event featured several influential speakers who gave their two cents on issues of economic, political and cultural significance.
After months of looking for work my search is over. I am now a paid progressive activist with Fund for the Public Interest.
The Fund: Experts In Building Organizations, Winning Campaigns & Training Activists
Fund for the Public Interest's 25-year commitment to professional, systematic grassroots action has made us the go-to group in our field. When it comes to building organizations and creating the groundswell of public support needed to overcome powerful special interest opposition, our effectiveness is unrivaled.
In 20 states, the Fund trains our staff to raise money, recruit members and do grassroots political work on behalf of more than 50 progressive organizations - including the Sierra Club, the Human Rights Campaign and Environment America. Meanwhile, hundreds of Fund alumni lead the way for hundreds of other effective political organizations, elected officials, and socially-conscious businesses.
Clean Energy Jobs Go Swimming: $300 million per year for 10,000 jobs
This is part of a series of brief posts on 'clean energy jobs' opportunities for sparking meaningful employment, quickly, in the United States.
Legislation is, they say, analogous to making sausage. Sometimes, in the mixing and mashing, seemingly well-intentioned and sensible options can create counter-productive situations and leave many valued goods on the table. One small example of this could open the door to creating employment, lowering costs for state & local governments (including educational institutions), improving 'customer' satisfaction, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
When it came to the stimulus package earlier this year, "swimming pools" were explicitly excluded from ARRA funding mechanisms. While, amid serious economic stress and government investment to keep the economic from continuing in freefall, it might have seemed morally appropriate to do this, this restriction simply flies in the face of reality and good sense.
Just two days after announcing the escalation of the war in Afghanistan, President Obama held a jobs summit:
With unemployment levels above 10 percent, Obama said "We cannot hang back and hope for the best."
But, mindful of growing anxiety about federal deficits, Obama also tempered his upbeat talk with an acknowledgment that government resources could only go so far and that it is primarily up to the private sector to create large numbers of new jobs.
He said while he's "open to every demonstrably good idea ... we also though have to face the fact that our resources are limited."
Beyond the question of why a Democratic president is giving lip service to deficit hawks at a moment that screams for more Keynesian stimulus, the real question is this: why is it that we have to endure nearly a year of grueling political games just to get a weak, watered down health care bill that we have been told, all along, has to be deficit-neutral, yet no one bats an eye at throwing tens of billions more each year into wars?
Ever wonder why the right wing corporate shills disparage "Europe" and everything "European" and they associate liberalism with "european" ideals?
Because many countries in Europe are better off than we are, that's why. And because the Corporatists don't like that. They want Americans to think that "America is the greatest country in the world" and all of that jingoistic bullshit, because, well, that fits into their brainwashing plan for the American worker.
Check this out. Turns out that the economic downturn in Germany was just as bad as it was here, save for one particular aspect: there wasn't the mass unemployment that there was here. Far more people kept their jobs in Germany.
It's no accident. It's because they have these things there called "laws". Apparently they haven't yet had their German version of the heroic Ronald Reagan asshole to come in and convince them that that piss dripping down on them was actually rain. They actually know what's going on, and they have this concept of "the common good" where they actually take care of their own.
Got that Tiny Tim? Mr. Scrooge isn't the problem, the problem is that overpaid bum, Cratchett.
American Wages Out of Balance
By EDWARD HADAS, MARTIN HUTCHINSON and ANTONY CURRIE
Published: November 10, 2009
American workers are overpaid, relative to equally productive employees elsewhere doing the same work. If the global economy is to get into balance, that gap must close.
So how much more do the Masters Of the Universe at Goldman Sachs and elsewhere think that Americans should be paid comapred to the outright slaves and other indentured servants throughout the world? Join me below the fold to find out, and do't forget your torches and pitchforks.
They don't just hope HE (President Obama) FAILS, they hope America fails, and they (The Republican party) are helping it happen by obstructing reform and fighting job growing legislation that will help America recover.
They hope you lose your job and go broke so that you are pissed off and miserable, and they hope this lasts until 2010 and 2012 so you can take it out on the incumbents who are in office, and when we "throw the bums out" Republicans will finally get back the political power that they crave so much.
The Republican party is sabotaging America's recovery for political gain.
This is the new meme that we as Democrats should push in order to expose the elected Republicans for what they are, fake patriots who put politics above the best interests of their own nation.
I've recently relocated to the Washington, D.C. area. In so doing, I've recognized the vast amount of good that can be accomplished with a combination of concentration of wealth and an educated populace situated in one precise location. The all-important achievement of critical mass proves itself essential yet again. Still, I have to say that I won't ever be inclined to take these gifts for granted, like so many in this town seem inclined to do. Growing up where I did, even in the suburban South, I was raised without certain benefits and expectations upon which residents in this city would pitch a fit in protest if they were ever not provided. For example, I did not have the ability to utilize adequate public transportation. Nor was I inundated with places to purchase organic produce or earth-conscious consumer goods. I was never reminded to bring my own reusable grocery bags to the supermarket. Walmarts were never banned, instead they were embraced. Republicans were the people one lawn over, not someone miles away far removed from the hustle and bustle of the city. Likely some family in the neighborhood refused to celebrate Halloween, leaving two bowls full of untouched religious literature instead of candy, thoroughly disappointing trick o'treaters in the process.
Every day on my way back and forth to do daily errands, I wade through a stream of college students whose parents must overwhelmingly well-off. I know the parents must be, because these students never seem to have to work and I doubt they could afford the things they have on a waiter or waitresses' salary. Their privilege shows plainly, down to their expensive clothing, high-priced accessories, and nonchalant, dismissive attitudes. Despite my best intentions, I admit with no small discomfort that I find it hard not to resent them. In my own college days, admittedly still not that far in the rearview mirror, I recognize some slight similarities between them as they are now and the person I was a few years back, though the differences are far more glaring. In seeking to avoid building my own personal mythology upon a foundation of smug superiority or paternalistic moralizing, I instead share my own story.
Though I was a scholarship student, my full college tuition was awarded on the basis of my being disabled. Though there had been ominous rumblings ever since my birth, namely that I was a frequently sick child, the proper onset of my illness did not arrive until midway through high school. After frequent, lengthy hospitalizations and other disease-related distractions, my grade point average plummeted. Until then, I had been on track to go to more than a few schools whose very names themselves connoted mystical respect and unquestioned prestige. However, by the time college appeared on the horizon and emerged from my latest pleasant hospital stay, I only qualified for in-state offers. As such, I made my final decision purely on the sensible basis that I ought to stay close to my doctors, since it was highly likely I'd need extensive treatment in the near future. In hindsight, it was a wise decision, and one that proved to be correct, but to this day I have a hard time choking back my bitterness. How I would have loved attending a prestigious school in a solidly blue city!
At the time, I didn't realize that often the quality of instruction and educational merit of colleges and individuals isn't vast, especially since college success is directly proportional to what one puts into it, but what cannot be discounted in the least are the networking opportunities that arise from attending a well-connected school. What has made my recent job search difficult is that I simply did not have the opportunity to attend a noteworthy college or university. I do recognize that this fact is due to external factors upon which I had absolutely no control and, as such, it's not like my own laziness or academic underachievement are to blame. Still, in this abysmal job climate, who you know, or who you know who knows someone who will go to bat for you is much more important than achievement or merit. This is especially true in politics and probably has always been.
For example, my tenth grade English teacher became Laura Bush's press secretary based on having been in a sorority with someone's daughter, whose father happened to be a well-connected Republican. On the Democratic side of the ball, I note that this past weekend I attended a huge house party held not far from Capitol Hill. Most of those who attended were Hill staffers, and though it would be a vast oversimplification to state that most of them clearly had not gotten their jobs based on their intellectual prowess alone, they did give every impression of being of the former frat boy persuasion. One could also safely wager that they had achieved their positions in much the same fashion as my former teacher. I need to point out here that those of us who believe in government's inherent capability to skillfully, and competently solve a multitude of problems might have emerged somewhat less certain of it after spending a few hours uneasily rubbing shoulders and listening to conversations.
Andrew Jackson was the first President to advance the spoils system without any apology for the procedure, but I doubt he was the first to utilize it to reward supporters and well-connected constituents. A rather large and glaring discrepancy exists between the system as it is and the one upon which we place our full trust. Over the years, a multitude of reforms have been passed to level the playing field, which include everything from Affirmative Action to campaign finance reform, but regardless of intent, interpersonal connections or the lack thereof circumvent our best intentions. To some degree, it's understandable that we function in such a way. Anyone in a management position will feel more comfortable hiring someone whom he or she knows he or she can trust or whose good name can be reliably vouched for by someone he or she knows personally. Even so, it's people like me who never had the ability to make those sorts of connections in the first place who end up shortchanged. Nor is this a system that leaves out purely the disabled.
Many highly-qualified candidates get shuffled to the bottom of the deck automatically. If they do not have an in to the established network, then they are much less likely to make it past the very first step. Nor is this regrettable situation solely applicable to job seekers. It wasn't until I moved here that I realized how overwhelmingly the Northeast corridor shapes so much of our national discourse and our national identity. I have observed that those in the news business at times express a justified consternation at the kind of unilateral narratives that are advanced by the Washington-to-New York pipeline at the expense of the rest of the country's news agencies. Sometimes these mini-narratives hold water but often they prove themselves to be not quite as notable, nor as important as they'd like to believe. Even as a child, I recognized how even the stories and historical anecdotes found in the textbooks I read in elementary school focused heavily upon the cities of the East Coast, as though by implication they themselves were all of America. If the South, by contrast, was ever mentioned, one either read of a romanticized notion of chivalry and gallantry nearly a century out of date or as an invocation to hear again of the shameful history of a racist past---a past never allowed to be forgotten. At times I feel a sort of kinship with modern day Germans, since I imagine they are never allowed to forget about the Holocaust, either.
As for the problem between the favoritism we have and the meritocracy we believe we have, this is a disconnect that will not change so long as the existing power structure does not recognize the problem and does not make the needed internal reforms. Much like the entitled rich kids I file past every day, I doubt most even contemplate their own complicity in a system that, if they ever were questioned about it, they would wholly justify by saying that they were merely the latest to inherit it. Like so many institutionalized and enmeshed inequalities, few feel any compulsion whatsoever towards reform because few give it serious contemplation. If you'd like my unvarnished opinion, I think that until we get this particularly unfortunate discriminatory practice under control, we'll run into complication after complication in every other reform measure we push. It has been my experience that the most virulent ills are not the ones we can plainly see, but the overarching underpinnings and framework that are common to everyone, regardless of identity group or leaning. The basic premise of preferential treatment is not necessarily unjustified, but when we assume that brand name, family name, or college name trump everything else, then we run into massive problems. The clothes do not make the emperor.
Are you still employed? My advice is to keep that job because getting another one in this age is like getting waterboarded. Gone are the simple days of pounding the pavement. It has been replaced by an impersonal electronic Matrix apparently written by Satan himself.
I don't need to tell you that unemployment is through the roof. U6 is at 20+% nationwide, and in NYC it is as bad as anywhere else. At some point, we as a nation need to figure out that the private sector will not save us, rather they are strangling us, but, that is not why I write today, although it is an issue that must be addressed if we are to recover from the Bush/Cheney depression anytime soon.
In New York City you can see the class warfare at it's prime. A few bonus baby Wall St types who tanked the whole economy on us yuk it up over drinks while a ton of busboys sweat it out for that extra buck.
Well, I have hit my breaking point. I have no job, no money, and no more patience. As much as I love the Big Rotten Apple, I have to say Good Bye, New York City.
This town is too rich for my blue collared blood. I have tried bootstraps. I have tried denying things like health care and dentist appointments, eating out and other non-necessities.
March on Washington
