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A Tale of Two CEOs, SEIU calls for firing BoA’s Lewis (Updated)

(Updated with quotes from Andy Stern, head of the SEIU)

From the SEIU blog.  Please sign the petition and spread the word.

I have a story for you.

Two CEOs lead two large public companies that start sinking, putting thousands out of work and toppling the American economy. Both CEOs accepted billions in taxpayer dollars to sustain their companies, but both failed to stop their companies’ downward spirals.

One CEO — GM’s Rick Wagoner — got his pink slip from President Obama this morning. The other — Bank of America’s Ken Lewis — accepted bailout funds while continuing to fleece consumers and taxpayers.

It’s time for the Obama Administration to show the door to CEO Ken Lewis in order for real reform to take hold at Bank of America.

Sign our petition to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner calling for Ken Lewis to be replaced as Bank of America CEO. Click here to take action:

http://action.seiu.org/page/s/…

http://www.seiu.org/2009/03/te…

The blog post goes on to list the reasons why:

Why should Ken Lewis be fired? Let’s count the reasons.

$45 billion bailout for more of the same. Ken Lewis’ Bank of America has yet to change its core business practices that ran our economy into the ground in the first place.

$5 billion in bonuses met with blind eye. CEO Ken Lewis turned a blind eye when one of his new acquisitions gave out an estimated $5 billion in bonuses right before the company got a $10 billion bailout.

$120 million in CEO pay. Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis took home more than $120 million dollars in the last several years, more than 4,000 times what his average employee makes. The era of excess is over.

247,000 forgotten employees. Ken Lewis’ Bank of America is actively fighting the Employee Free Choice Act, which would level the playing for its employees. In some states, Bank of America employees take up large portions of public health care because they don’t earn enough money.

Sign the Petition.

Pigs on Wall Street Squealing

I read this statement this morning and I just shook my head:

Dimon of New York-based JPMorgan this month called on government officials to stop demonizing Wall Street, saying “it’s just hurting our country at this point.”

When I hear the constant vilification of corporate America, I personally don’t understand it,” Dimon said in a speech earlier this month hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/…

I bet you don’t Mr. Dimon.  But working people losing homes and jobs sure do.

We need more vilification of corporate America, not less.

We will never have change in this nation until we admit the problem is a system that places profit over people.

I do not think we will see that soon, not even people AND profits.  Just a softer and gentler version of Profit over People.

After weeks in which the White House was often sharply critical of excesses at financial companies, the president wants to adopt a more collaborative approach.

We’re reliant upon them to help rebuild our economy,” said senior adviser Valerie Jarrett. “It would be very unnatural if we didn’t engage them and have a direct opportunity to pick their brains and look to the future.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/…

Which side am I on?  Workers over investors.  Labor over capital.

In 1931, coal miners in Harlan County were on strike. Armed company deputies roamed the countryside, terrorizing the mining communities, looking for union leaders to beat, jail, or kill. But coal miners, brought up lean and hard in the Kentucky mountain country, knew how to fight back, and heads were bashed and bullets fired on both sides in Bloody Harlan.

It was this kind of class war — the mine owners and their hired deputies on one side, and the independent, free-wheeling Kentucky coal-miners on the other — that provided the climate for Florence Reece’s “Which Side Are You On?” In it she captured the spirit of her times with blunt eloquence.

Mrs. Reece wrote from personal experience. Her husband, Sam, was one of the union leaders, and Sheriff J. H. Blair and his men came to her house in search of him when she was alone with her seven children. They ransacked the whole house and then kept watch outside, ready to shoot Sam down if he returned.

One day during this tense period Mrs. Reece tore a sheet from a wall calendar and wrote the words to “Which Side Are You On?” The simple form of the song made it easy to adapt for use in other strikes, and many different versions have circulated.

http://www.geocities.com/Nashv…

The same war is going on today.  We constantly are asked in our lives, which side are you on?  I know which side I’m on.

That’s why I came to docudharma to write diaries.  I did not fit among the faux progressives who bow to investors.

McCain Neo-Con Advisor hearts Obama Iraq Plan

Randy Scheunemann was director of foreign policy and national security for the McCain-Palin campaign.  He was the chief foreign policy advisor for John McCain.  And he has a history.  Scheunemann served as a director of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC).

In January 1998, PNAC published an open letter to President Bill Clinton arguing that “containment” of Iraq “has been steadily eroding,” jeopardizing the region and, potentially, beyond. “Given the magnitude of the threat, the current policy, which depends for its success upon the steadfastness of our coalition partners and upon the cooperation of Saddam Hussein, is dangerously inadequate.”

He founded the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq in 2002; director of foreign policy and national security for the McCain-Palin campaign

He now desribes the Obama plan as one John McCain might have formulated:

Now, we should all hope President Obama continues to listen to Gens. David Petraeus and Ray Odierno, rebuffs his left-wing critics and stays the course with an Iraq policy John McCain might have formulated.

WaPo

Hmmm.  More, after the fold.

Sen. Merkley: Let’s “truly end this war.”

This is worth reading and thinking about.  It’s good were going, but three years is a long time to stay.  I see Senators willing to speak up, where so many who claim to be gate crashers are silent.

MERKLEY STATEMENT ON OBAMA PLAN TO

WITHDRAW TROOPS FROM IRAQ

Washington, DC – Today, President Barack Obama outlined a plan to begin a phased withdraw of troops from Iraq, winding down active military engagement in that nation.  Oregon’s Senator Jeff Merkley issued the following statement:

“Our national interests are not served by the war in Iraq.  I applaud President Obama’s commitment to a solid plan for withdrawing our troops and ending the war.

However, I have reservations about the extended 19 month schedule for the draw down and I am very concerned that the size of the remaining force would still be too great.  It will be hard to argue that our military presence is ‘residual’ when it is comprised of as many as 50,000 Americans.  

“I hope to work with the Obama Administration to truly end this war and bring our sons and daughters home safely.”

Thank you, Senator Merkely.  Someday this man may lead a real movement for progressive change in America.      

(Update II )Mccain Supports Obama Plan, Pelosi and Reid now more anti-war than many Kossaks.

(Cross posted from Daily Kos.  http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

It speaks to more than just Daily Kos, though.  It speaks to what the netroots are, a cheerleading group for Obama on all decisions or a progressive movement.  When Pelosi and Reid are to the left of the “progressive blogosphere, something is truly screwed up!)

What has happened?  I opposed the invasion of Iraq back in 2002 and 2003.  When I came to Daily Kos in October 2006, the vast majority wanted withdrawal from Iraq ASAP.  Yet in some diaries this week, I saw many kossaks defending leaving 50,000 troops in Iraq after 2010.

Well, I never thought I would see it.  Pelosi and Reid now are more antiwar than many who like to see themselves as crashing the gates.  Yes, Pelosi and Reid now are more antiwar than many on Dkos

After  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) complained that the level of troops — 50,000 — who would remain in Iraq is too high, other senior Democrats voiced similar concerns. Not one member of the Democratic leadership, except for  Sen. Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), defended the new Obama plan, which will take three months longer than he promised and still leave a significant force structure on the ground.

WAPo: Democrats Assail Plan For Pulling Out Troops?

More, after the fold.  (Updated with “The Silence of the Liberals”)

Pelosi: 50,000 Residual Troops Left in Iraq is Too Many

Thank you, Madam Speaker.  People have been critical of Speaker Pelosi, and sometimes rightfully so for putting impeachment off the table, but on issue after issue, e.g., Iraq, raising taxes on the wealthy, ending Bush’s tax cuts now, she is to the Left of President Obama.

I agree with her here.  50,000 troops, including combat troops that are being reclassified as “advisory personell or some such bs, is too much.  It’s time to end the American Empire.  We simply cannot afford it as people lose homes and jobs.  It ain’t right.  No more blood for empire.    

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/…

MADDOW: Fifty thousand seem like an awful large residual force?

PELOSI: It does. It does. I completely agree with that. And I don’t – the president hasn’t made the statement. … And I don’t know the justification is for a presence of 50,000 troops in Iraq. I do think that there is a need for some, and I don’t know that all of them have to be in the country. They can be platformed outside. … I would think one-third of that, maybe 20,000, maybe more than one-third, 15,000 or 20,000.

Obama v. Petraeus on Iraq

If we want out of the war, we need to build a movement. The military is fighting Obama on Iraq:

WASHINGTON, Feb 2 (IPS) – CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus, supported by Defence Secretary Robert Gates, tried to convince President Barack Obama that he had to back down from his campaign pledge to withdraw all U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months at an Oval Office meeting Jan. 21.

But Obama informed Gates, Petraeus and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen that he wasn’t convinced and that he wanted Gates and the military leaders to come back quickly with a detailed 16-month plan, according to two sources who have talked with participants in the meeting.

Obama’s decision to override Petraeus’s recommendation has not ended the conflict between the president and senior military officers over troop withdrawal, however. There are indications that Petraeus and his allies in the military and the Pentagon, including Gen. Ray Odierno, now the top commander in Iraq, have already begun to try to pressure Obama to change his withdrawal policy.

snip

Petraeus was visibly unhappy when he left the Oval Office, according to one of the sources. A White House staffer present at the meeting was quoted by the source as saying, “Petraeus made the mistake of thinking he was still dealing with George Bush instead of with Barack Obama.”

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.as…

Please read the entire article.  It desribes a conspiracy between serving military Generals and retired Generals to undermine their Commander-in-Chief.

A network of senior military officers is also reported to be preparing to support Petraeus and Odierno by mobilising public opinion against Obama’s decision.

snip

The source says the network, which includes senior active duty officers in the Pentagon, will begin making the argument to journalists covering the Pentagon that Obama’s withdrawal policy risks an eventual collapse in Iraq. That would raise the political cost to Obama of sticking to his withdrawal policy.

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.as…

On this one, we need to support Obama.

This is the truth of American power.  There is a center and a right, but no left.  We must strengthen the center (Obama) so there is room to build a democratic left.  

The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. You Don’t See on TV

(I wrote this diary last year for MKL’s B-Day, and I thought it was just as relevant today as we prepare to inaugurate our first African American President as it was last year.  The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. You Don’t See on TV

With just a couple revisions and a brief update, here it is again.)  

I want to talk about the Dr. King you likely won’t see on TV.

But after passage of civil rights acts in 1964 and 1965, King began challenging the nation’s fundamental priorities. He maintained that civil rights laws were empty without “human rights” – including economic rights. For people too poor to eat at a restaurant or afford a decent home, King said, anti-discrimination laws were hollow.

Noting that a majority of Americans below the poverty line were white, King developed a class perspective. He decried the huge income gaps between rich and poor, and called for “radical changes in the structure of our society” to redistribute wealth and power.

Media Beat (1/4/95)

More, after the fold.  

Progressive Feedback Works: Obama Drops Business Tax Break

In meetings last week, several Democratic Senators were critical of Barack Obama’s inclusion of a $3,000-per-job tax credit for business in the stimulus plan as potentially unworkable and unikely to create jobs.  See Sen. Harkin: Obama’s Plan looks like “trickle-down”; Summers: “Message Heard, Loud and Clear” (referring to Senators Kerry, Conrad and Harkin).

Obama is serious about collaborative decision making.  He listened and has now acted:

Bowing to widespread Democratic skepticism, President-elect Barack Obama will drop his bid to include a business tax break he once touted in the economic stimulus bill now taking shape on Capitol Hill, aides said last night.

WaPo: Obama Shelves Jobs-Credit Proposal, Democrats Said $3,000 Tax Incentive Could Be Abused by Businesses

More about progressive feedback and why it’s essential to Obama and all of our success, after the fold.

Obama Improving Stimulus based on Progressive Feedback

I wrote about progressive criticism of the stimulus plan last week:

Sen. Harkin: Obama’s Plan looks like “trickle-down”; Summers: “Message Heard, Loud and Clear”  (also, an earlier version on docudharma: https://www.docudharma.com/show…

The message was heard and is being acted on.  Barack Obama and his administration-to-be has been listening to Democrats and now is revising the stimulus plan.

Emerging from a two-hour meeting in the Capitol with Obama advisers Lawrence Summers and Jason Furman, Senate Democrats praised the President-elect’s team for agreeing to make changes to its stimulus proposal based off of concerns senators raised last week at a meeting with the president-elect’s senior aides.

Politico: Big changes to Obama stimulus plan

More, after the fold

We need a Real Recovery: Obama’s Plan is “Too Weak.”

This morning, Barack Obama raised the number of jobs the Recovery Plan will create from 3 million to 4 million.  He released a new report drafted by Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein, “The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan,” projecting the number of jobs the Recovery and Reinvestment Act will create:

“The report confirms that our plan will likely save or create 3 to 4 million jobs.  Ninety percent of these jobs will be created in the private sector.  The remaining 10 percent are mainly public sector jobs we save, like the teachers, police officers, firefighters and others who provide vital services in our communities.”

Video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

The Report is here: The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan

More, after the fold.  

Sen. Harkin: Obama’s Plan looks like trickle-down

From TPM:

Democratic senators are still emerging from their closed-door briefing with Obama economic adviser Larry Summers … but a senior Democratic senator, Iowa progressive Tom Harkin, just gave me a dire buzzword: trickle-down.

There’s only one thing we’ve got to do in this stimulus, and that’s create jobs,” Harkin told me. “I’m a little concerned by the way Mr. Summers and others are going on this … it still looks a little more to me like trickle-down.”

Likening Barack Obama’s economic recovery plan to the failed supply-side excesses of the Reagan and Bush years is a bit of a Cassandra moment. But Harkin didn’t back down. “What I’m hearing from Mr. Summers is that they’ve got a different approach — tax breaks, and this and that,” he said. Harkin warned that, much like the outcome of George Bush’s $600 stimulus package last year, recipients of quick tax cuts “are going to be salting it away, not spending it.”

http://tpmelectioncentral.talk…

Damn, I love Harkin. A Dem willing to stand up for working people.  

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