Electronic Pen

WALTER BRASCH FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

For most Americans, the only significance of Labor Day is that it concludes a three day weekend.

For Kirk Artley, it means he has about six weeks left of employment.

On Aug. 24, RR Donnelley, a Chicago-based megacorporation that claims to be "the world's premier full-service provider of print and related services," told Artley and the other 283 workers at the Bloomsburg, Pa., plant that "economic conditions" forced the closing of the book printing facility. The workers said they would take significant pay cuts if that would save the plant. RR Donnelley rejected the offer.

Most of the workers live in Columbia County, a small rural county of about 65,000, with unemployment about 8 percent, slightly less than the national rate. Adding 284 persons would significantly increase that rate.

Under the termination agreement, the workers, both management and labor, wouldn't have priority rights to bid for jobs at any other plant. "We were told we could apply for open jobs just like anyone else," says Artley, a bindery technician and president of Local 732C of the Graphic Communications Conference, a Teamsters division. Apparently, there was no way to integrate a couple of hundred workers into a corporation that employs about 58,000. What the corporation that had about $10 billion income last year did agree to do, after negotiations with the union, was award severance of one week pay for every year of service, and to pay for half the health insurance for up to nine months, depending upon length of service.

The corporation told the workers the Bloomsburg plant was no longer profitable. They claimed there was no way the Bloomsburg plant, with its eight rotary offset web presses and five bindery lines, could be competitive in an industry that was moving to digital books. They said other plants would absorb the work. If the company had even contemplated changing the nature of production at Bloomsburg to deal with a changing industry, and re-training the workers, that was never made known to those still employed. Every day, the workers did their jobs, put up with Management, and then went home.

By federal law, there has to be a 60-day notice to the workers. But there is no law to require corporations to tell them the truth.

Contrary to corporate statements and a popular belief that print books are doomed by the emergence and significant increase in publication and sales of digital books, there is still a consumer interest in print. Overall, about 2.57 billion books were sold in 2010, a 4.1 percent increase since 2008, according to data compiled by the Association of American Publishers (AAP). Net sales revenue last year was $27.94 billion, a 5.6 percent increase from two years earlier. The AAP reports there were 603 million copies of trade hardcover books published last year, a 5.8 percent increase from two years earlier, with net sales revenue up about 0.9 percent. For trade softcover books, sales were about one billion copies, up 2.0 percent from 2008, with net sales revenue of about $5.27 billion, according to the AAP. The only significant decrease was mass market paperbacks (sometimes known as the supermarket or rack paperbacks). In 2010, net unit sales were 319 million, a decrease of 16.8 percent from 2008; net revenue was $1.28 billion in 2010, down 13.8 percent from two years earlier, according to the AAP. The Bloomsburg plant printed Harlequin romances and some other mass market paperbacks, but they were a small part of the overall production.

RR Donnelley itself, with assets of about $9 billion, is profitable, although its stock has had wide fluctuations in 2011. Its net sales for 2010 were $10.02 billion, up from $9.86 billion the year before. For the first half of 2011, Donnelley had net sales of $3.86 billion, up about 5.7 percent from $3.65 billion a year earlier. Its second quarter net sales were $2.62 billion, an 8.6 percent increase from a year earlier. The company CEO, Thomas J. Quinlan III, earns about $2.6 million in total compensation, with a five-year combined compensation of about $13.6 million, according to Forbes. In contrast, hourly workers in the Bloomsburg plant received an average of 2 percent pay raises each year.

"Just last month, the company told us we were profitable, that it had no plans to close us down," says Artley, "and now they say we aren't profitable?"

No well-run corporation makes a decision in less than a month to close a 370,000 square foot plant, with an estimated market value of about $8.4 million. But, that is what the corporation wants the workers to believe. The union did get Donnelley to agree it would not shut down the plant and then re-open it and resume printing books. There was no corporate agreement that it wouldn't "re-tool," and establish other printing or digital services. And there was definitely no agreement to retrain or rehire any worker. Based upon past practices, RRD Donnelley is more likely to try to sell the empty building and land.

A clue to what the corporation was going to do may have been disclosed in October 2010 when it trumpeted that it had developed the ProteusJet, high-speed ink jet printers, and was shipping one a month to various plants. The printers were designed to handle short run and one copy at a time print-on-demand publishing. None of those printers were scheduled to be delivered to Bloomsburg.

Bloomsburg still produced several long-run publications for major publishers, including the Idiot's Guide and Twilight series, as well as several fiction best-sellers. But, it was developing a specialty as a short-run printer (generally 1,000-3,000 copies of a title), with a three-day turn-around. In the current book industry, shorter runs with faster turn-around times are becoming more of an industry standard, especially with the rise of more small independent regional publishers. Yet, Donnelley was closing a plant that could have been part of a major expansion to meet the new publishing platforms. "That's one of the things that baffled us," says Artley.

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BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

While they are not spitting images of each other, there's an eerie similarity in how the press is covering Rick Perry's first weeks on the campaign trail. In addition, Perry is counting on tapping into the same funding sources that paved the way for George W. Bush, especially the 'Swift Boat' donors that helped put the kybosh on John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign.

Stop me if you've heard this story before.

A well-heeled and politically well-connected Texas Governor becomes president of the United States. During the run-up to his campaign, he receives significant advice and support from some of the most conservative evangelical Christians in his state and across the nation. At the same time his campaign team rounds up some of the state's wealthiest funders and then branches out to include rich conservatives from around the country. The media begins investigating his business deals and his record as governor. The "liberal elite" and late-night talk show hosts routinely ridicule him for getting average grades in college and for being generally "not so smart."

That was then (George W. Bush), this is now (Rick Perry).

With 14-+ months left before the presidential election and some five months before the first GOP primaries, it's, as Yogi Berra said, "déjà vu all over again?"

There is an eerily similar dynamic developing.  Since Perry announced his candidacy, one of the areas that the mainstream press has examined - as it should - is Perry's business dealings; documenting how the son of a poor cotton farmer has become a millionaire several times over.

Back in 1999-2000, there were oodles of stories documenting George W. Bush's abject failure in several business ventures, and how his father's fabulously wealthy friends bailed him out. There was the Texas Rangers deal replete with allegations of insider trading, extraordinary bank loans, and a huge investment of public tax money to build The Ballpark at Arlington.  Eventually Bush sold his share in the team and made out like a bandit (http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/05/13/president.2000/jackson.bush/).

However, the more the press probed, the more labyrinthine some of those deals became until the general public largely ignored and tuned out those stories.

This time around, you can bet that Perry's committed base could care less about any stories from the mainstream press about backroom deals, cronyism or how he accumulated his wealth (see "Rick Perry's Heavenly Host" (http://info.tpj.org/reports/pdf/PerryLeiningerHeavenlyHost.pdf).

This is not to say that the cowboy boots wearing Bush and the cowboy boots wearing Perry are cut from the same cloth. For one thing, Bush, a recovering alcoholic, was putting forth the mantra of "compassionate conservatism," which while conservative, was deeply lacking in compassion. Perry's refrain - including comments that Social Security is a Penza scheme -- smacks of "cutthroat conservatism." Bush was born of privilege and Perry wasn't. And there are all sorts of stories floating about detailing major rifts between Team Perry and Team Bush.

They both are, however, plain-speaking men who have (or least appear to have) inviolable core beliefs, or at least the same inviolable set of talking points. When it comes down to some base issues - abortion, school vouchers, tort reform, same-sex marriage -- Bush and Perry are on the same page.

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STEPHEN PIZZO FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Remember learning in school about how American revolutionaries changed ground warfare? For centuries soldiers from opposing armies marched in straight lines towards each other engaging in face to face battle. America's out-manned and out-armed  citizen soldiers introduced the British Red Coats to what we now call "asymmetric warfare,"-- and much to the disgust of the British. They considered hiding in the bushes and shooting down the neatly lined up Red Coats something considerately less than cricket.

I only mention this because I've been watching the fresh pissing match that has broken out over Wikileaks. This time it's not just embarrassed governments and public officials condemning Wikileaks, but the media as well.

Because, you see, in the minds of those who have, for the past century or so, acted as unchallenged gatekeepers of information, suddenly they seem to have lost control. Stuff gets out before they get to see it, filter it, change it or decide for us we don't need to know it.

I can fully understand why governments and government officials, past and present, hate Wikileaks. But the press? What's that all about?

Well, it's about that whole "emperor's clothes" business. Wikileaks has left the world's media standing stark naked for all to see.

How mortifying to have everyone learn - thanks to Wikileaks - that the W. Bush administration was sending suspected terrorist suspects to Libya so Gaddafi's forces could work them over for us. Yeah, THAT Gaddafi, the guy who killed a hundred Americans when he bombed that Pan Am flight over Scotland. We didn't learn that bit of news from the New York Times or Washington Post, now did we.

No. We learned that little gem when Wikileaks dumped all it's secret US cables at once a week ago --  without first letting favored media outlets see them first.

"Many media outlets, including The Associated Press, previously had access to all or part of the uncensored tome. But Wikileaks' decision to post the 251,287 cables on its website makes potentially sensitive diplomatic sources available to anyone, anywhere at the stroke of a key. American officials have warned that the disclosures could jeopardize vulnerable people such as opposition figures or human rights campaigner" Full Story

As long as they got to see these things first and remove stuff from them, these mainstream media outlets, while hardly delighted that Wikileaks was revealing stuff they'd missed -or ignored - at least Wikileaks was still showing the mainstream media "respect" - as the term is used by crime bosses and cartel operators.

But last week that all ended when Wikileaks cut the mainstream media entirely out of the loop and just, well, leaked - like a fire hose.

And there they were, one super-hot scoop after another that none of us ever saw in print or heard about on CNN. Nope. It was all, apparently, news to them when Wikileaks leaked;

• That American troops executed an entire Iraqi family, kids and all, then higher ups ordered airstrikes on the house to cover up the crime.

• That Microsoft aided the recently deposed Tunisian dictator

• That Indian Gov. Mayawati sent an empty jet to Mumbai to purchase a pair of shoes

• That, during the early days of the US banking crisis in 2008, China offered to invest in US Banks

• A cable that reveals how the Israeli Army planned to abuse peaceful civilian protesters.

And more, lots more. For the most part we hadn't read a word of it in the press, until last week. And then only because the cats had been let out of the bag by Wikileaks forcing, not only embarrassed governments and officials to sputter and spit, but the mainstream media as well.

The conservative American Standard headline read: "Wikileaks Now Foe of Free Speech"

A joint statement published on the Guardian's website said that the British publication and its international counterparts - The New York Times, France's Le Monde, Spanish daily El Pais and German newspaper Der Spiegel - "deplore the decision of WikiLeaks to publish the unredacted State Department cables, which may put sources at risk."

In their statement, the Guardian's international partners lined up to slam the 40-year-old former computer hacker.

"We cannot defend the needless publication of the complete data - indeed, we are united in condemning it," the statement read, before adding: "The decision to publish by Julian Assange was his, and his alone."

Ah yes, and isn't that so NOT cricket... failing to run it all by the masters of media first, the very same folks who either failed to uncover these stories themselves or, for whatever reasons, ignored them.

Isn't this a rare convergence of outrage; governments,public officials and the press, all on the same side. Not that it hasn't happened before:

Former UK PM,Tony Blair, Godfather To Rupert Murdoch's Daughter

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not being mindlessly cavalier about the potential dangers of leaking some secrets. But it's got to be balance and right now we're terribly out of balance. Governments and those who control them use secrecy to hide genuinely important national security information.

That's true. But they have abused the practice. Much as pot farmers in the midwest plant corn just to hide the pot growing between the rows. Governments and government officials and corporations in cahoots with both, use national security to hide the very kind of core information needed for a democracy to run as a democracy.

Maybe the guy who runs Wikileaks, Julian Assange - a flawed figure himself - put it best last week. In responding to the hailstorm of attacks from around the world over the recent data dump Assange bluntly replied;

"If governments don't like people knowing this kind of stuff, they should stop acting like pigs in the first place."

Amen to that. And to the press I add, - I think the lady protesteth too much. Tell your new corporate paymasters you're in the news business, not the public relations business or a protection service for public officials. Start funding I-teams again and relearn the art of what the CIA calls "HUMIT" or "human intelligence." You remember human intelligence, don't you? Back in the day we used to call them "sources," and we tended them like a gardener tends their garden. And, they bore fruit, more often than not.

But, until then, we will have to rely on the Wikileaks and hackers of our time to tell us what we need to know, even when others think we shouldn't know.

So, Wikileakers and hackers like Anonymous might be thought of as the revolutionaries of our age - refusing to play by the rules of the rulers. Breaking the rules of engagement for a higher good.

And the Red Coats hate it.

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MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

As President Obama puts the finishing touches on his much anticipated "jobs speech," The Washington Post is featuring a story, "A Decade After the 9/11 Attacks, Americans Live in an Era of Endless War."

More than 65 years ago, the US celebrated a post-World War II victory Labor Day that marked the rise of the great era of the American middle class, and the hope of an end to armed conflict. But that was not to be, as the Post notes: in World War II, "the players are unquestionably good and the war's ends are noble.... In the modern warfare battles, the conflicts are unending."

This Labor Day, in 2011, the middle class is incrementally disappearing and we are fighting wars that we no longer have a coherent rationale for fighting. But these unending Pentagon battles are a growth industry in a declining job market. They are one of our few "successful" jobs programs, employing everyone from GIs to weapons assemblers to "security" contracting firms to our extensive intelligence network.

No politician, including President Obama, will seriously challenge the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us to be wary of. It - through the lobbying influence of weapons makers and the mythic power of the Pentagon - continues to wage war because it needs "enemies" to justify its existence, profit and expansion.

This is where we have ended up: a broken American dream of a ghoulish growth industry, according to the Post:

This is the American era of endless war.

To grasp its sweep, it helps to visit Fort Campbell, Ky., where the Army will soon open a $31 million complex for wounded troops and those whose bodies are breaking down after a decade of deployments.

The Warrior Transition Battalion complex boasts the only four-story structure on the base, which at 105,000 acres is more than twice the size of Washington, D.C. The imposing brick-and-glass building towers over architecture from earlier wars.

"This unit will be around as long as the Army is around," said Lt. Col. Bill Howard, the battalion commander.

As the new complex rises, bulldozers are taking down the last of Fort Campbell's World War II-era buildings. The white clapboard structures were hastily thrown up in the early 1940s as the country girded to battle Nazi Germany and imperial Japan. Each was labeled with a large letter "T." The buildings, like the war the country was entering, were supposed to be temporary.

The two sets of buildings tell the story of America's embrace of endless war in the 10 years since Sept. 11, 2001. In previous decades, the military and the American public viewed war as an aberration and peace as the norm.

But in place of the dream is a nightmare, wars that are almost forgotten but drain our economy and kill and maim young Americans who could be helping our nation grow into a brighter future.

These wars without end last so long that most Americans have basically forgotten that they are still being waged.

Tell that to the wounded GIs who will be filling up the "Warrior Transition Battalion." The elitists in DC have given up on offering them dignified work at home and a nation at peace. That is something to deplore, not celebrate, this Labor Day.

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GREGORY MYSKO FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Once again with the upcoming election season, Americans are asked to become the Corporate Crocodile's friend.  Democrats and Republicans with ties to these crocodiles are luring voters with promises of a vague concept called "jobs." And in the end, it seems, it is the average American that ends up getting eaten.

The elite Crocodiles of Corporate America do not care about Americans who are unemployed and who need to be employed.  Otherwise, why the constant outsourcing of American work overseas?   "Jobs" is just another election buzzword.

Even when House Speaker John Boehner bemoans the plight of the tax burden on America's   "job creators," he fails to mention that his Corporate Crocodile benefactors have used tax breaks to shift manufacturing jobs out of the United States and create jobs in China and elsewhere. The Obama administration does not seem to do much better in creating these ethereal "jobs."

A case in point is the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.  This group is an elite collection of corporate America that is given the charter to advise the president on how more jobs need to be created in America. However, it is nothing more than a hypocritical sham.  For this to come out of a Democratic administration is especially shameful.  As a former Obama supporter, I find it heartbreaking to comprehend.

The roster of the Council on Jobs and Competiveness is a who's who of CEOs and companies that over the years have systematically devastated the US economy by shipping jobs out of the country. They include General Electric, Xerox, American Express, DuPont, Boeing and others.

The chairman of this council is GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt, who is the successor to the legendary lion god of US capitalism, Jack Welch.  It was under Welch's direction that GE was transformed from a major US employer to a company that is a "job creator" in the John Boehner made-in-China sense.

Immelt continued the trend started by his predecessor.  Just this summer, for example, GE announced it had shifted the headquarters of its medical x-ray operations to China. This is in anticipation, according to GE sources, of eventually moving all GE healthcare operations there. In Milwaukee meanwhile, 81 GE employees lost their jobs in August because of this China move. And Immelt, who it can be assumed was the major player in this decision, is the chairman of the President's Council of Jobs and Competitiveness. What kind of advice is Obama getting from this guy? Will he include any of his suggestions in a speech to Congress?

The token union member of this council, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, may have an answer. He voiced serious criticism about the members. "You have people on the commission that are creating more jobs out of the country than you are here in this country," Trumka said. "I don't know whether the commission's making a difference or not.... It's a legitimate question whether that commission has done anything worthwhile."

Having Immelt as the chairman of an advisory panel to help bring jobs to America is cynical. Rep Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) thinks it is time for Immelt to resign. "Jeffrey Immelt has a conflict of interest. He cannot ethically advise the president on how to create American jobs and promote American competitiveness, while at the same time leading a company that is exporting American technology and, along with it, American jobs."

I can agree with Kucinich and raise him one. It is time this entire Jobs and Competitiveness Council be disbanded. It is a sick joke and an insult to all Americans who want to see the unemployed get jobs again. Or to see manufacturing jobs return to America.

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It's beginning to seem there's no way to set the record straight in the face of systemic right-wing attacks. With a six-day power outage here after Irene I relied on a small radio instead of the usual array of news sources available on cable channels and the internet, tuning in to Sean Hannity before I realized what I had stumbled upon. The magnitude of his pants-on-fire reportage was stunning and helps to explain why the electorate is so poorly informed. Between the Hannity hype and the Republican lineup of candidates elocuting absurdist policies we are poorly represented in the public forum.

Hannity repeated over and over that the Democrats have 'gone negative' because, according to him, they haven't got a single winning issue - - a remarkable statement given an impressive series of accomplishments. Because the emphasis has been on jobs and unemployment pols on the right have made it seem that Democrats have failed in every endeavor they have undertaken. That isn't surprising given the tirades unleashed on a daily basis by a flame-throwing media and the Republican majority in the house. Gone are any references to the remarkable legislative successes the Obama administration managed to achieve in a partisan Republican landscape that relies exclusively on the politics of personal destruction and plays fast and loose with truth and logic.

A political analyst said on a recent broadcast that we should be careful not to demonize and dismiss out of hand Tea Party candidates because it may be they will carry the day in 2012. There could be no more stunning testament to the fact that our country is not only grappling with a financial deficit but with an intellectual one as well if this field of candidates is the best to be had in a complex world that defies easy solutions. Unfortunately the president has seen fit to back off some of the themes that invigorate his base and should in fact concern most people. Clean air for heavens sake isn't just some backwater EPA over-reach as conservatives imply. Giving up the fight to expand safety regulations isn't a good way to massage the vocal right who claim over-regulation is strangling business; it is a profound mis-reading of what the public needs and wants in terms of a healthy environment and principled programs.

Be that as it may, however, Hannity's notion that there hasn't been a single success the administration can claim is ridiculous. Call it socialism or whatever conservatives like to call it, the president's support of the automotive industry preserved jobs and prevented a collapse that may well have doomed any chance of a national recovery. And like it or not the health-care plan brings hope to many endangered segments of our population. The Lily Ledbetter legislation overcame a Supreme Court decision that protected unfair labor practices in the name of free enterprise and the ability, as Senator McCain would have it, of businesses to run roughshod over the rights of employees to run things as they wish no matter how unfair. And the much-maligned "stimulus" saved jobs, its funding sought by office holders who nevertheless continued to rail against it to make political points.

Even if safety-net programs were curtailed massive deficits would remain and nothing in terms of innovation, job creation or industrial expansion would be added. As June Carbone in the September 1st issue of The Populist puts it "Obama failed to put an effective government (and Democratic) label on the programs that in fact produced the most results - - the jobs created by the stimulus for government infrastructure, the federal funds that saved the need for state layoffs etc. In Kansas Republican Governor Brownback and Republican Sen. Pat Roberts are claiming credit for a new federally-funded Bio-Defense Facility even as they bash federal funding."

And lest we forget, it was President Obama who set in motion a plan that ended Osama bin Laden's infamous Al Qaeda leadership. Of course the Tea Party doesn't have a real foreign-policy agenda. Just ask some of their spokespeople. They're all about deficits and lower taxes and the elimination of anything they define as socialism except of course for Social Security and Medicare which, for some strange reason are viewed as appropriate government projects despite allegiance to a free-wheeling, free-enterprise system.

There are legitimate criticisms to be made about this administration but lack of accomplishments isn't one of them. However progressives had better start speaking up on a regular basis unless they are willing to give up and give in.

STEPHEN PIZZO FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

"Pay no attention to man behind the curtain."

That was the famous line from Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy caught a glimpse of the fake wizard desperately pulling switches and punching buttons in a vain attempt to impress his visitors of his power.

I think about that scene a lot lately. I see that image in my head when I read about of one attempt after another by our leaders, or other leaders around the world, furiously trying every old trick in the book to get things back to "normal."

So far nothing has worked. Nothing is normal any more, anywhere. If Chicken Little were around today he'd be booked solid on cable talk shows. Hell, he'd probably have his own show.

I've felt for some time now that this turmoil we're experiencing is a horse of an entirely different color -- something we've never live through before. This is no recession -- at least no recession I've seen in my 66-years. I hardly noticed any of our previously declared recessions.

I sure as hell notice this one

Whatever the hell this is, it's no recession. It's something else.

One of the biggest distinctions between this -- let's just call it a "mess" -- and previous recessions is the number of things going wrong all at the same time.

If it were just the banks and bankers getting caught one again with their grimy mitts in the till, we have survived those kind of muggings many times before.

If it were just another cyclical disruption in domestic labor markets, we've seen that before  too and, after a few lock-outs, some worker protests and strikes, things settled back down and everyone went back to work.

But this time the meltdown of financial markets exposed some breathtaking evidence; an enormous hunk of what had been counted as "wealth" was actually just valueless concoctions, the value of which depended entirely on the current holder finding a greater fool to pay more for it than they did.  When we ran out of fools, those assets immediately morphed into liabilities. (As Warren Buffet put it recently, "You never really know who's swimming naked until the tide goes out.") Trillions of dollars in "wealth" vanished at the click of mouse.

Then there's the job market. Outsourcing -- oh it was all great fun until someone lost an eye. In our case that eye was nearly the entire US manufacturing base. With that went jobs.. millions and millions and millions of jobs. America, which less than 70 years earlier had been dubbed "the arsenal of democracy," for our vast ability to produce, has become instead the arsenal of bickering, bluster and bullshit.

Then there's the rest of the world.

After the fall of the Soviet Union only one super-power remained standing. So it seemed logical for the rest of the developed world to hitch their wagons to ours and shaping their fiscal policies, economies and policies to accommodate ours. They took short courses in the Chicago School of economics where they learned that the less government interferes with the private sector the better. And they learn the magic of "leverage," borrowing, and that "deficits don't matter."

Some learned our bad habits better than others. And now they're sharing beds alongside ours in intensive care. (A satirical movie title comes to mind: "Fiscal Jackasses")

While the wreckage of the world's free market systems continue their collapse, nearly the entire Arab world picked now to decide this is moment in history to rearrange their own deck chairs -- usually at gun point. And, of course, we decided that, rather than deal with our own growing problems at home, to jump right into the Arab world's business -- at gun point.

As I've said before-- this time it's different because there are too many disturbances in "the Force"--  all at once. The center not only cannot hold, but has not held.

So, pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

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MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

If progressives -- who for the most part pretty much advocate for democracy and a level playing field for the economy -- are going to be accused of being radical socialists, why not have at it and restrict individual acquisition of wealth in the US to one billion dollars?

Now, already you can hear the outraged squawking from the right-wing media echo chamber about how treasonous and un-American such a proposal would be. But as a recent commentary pointed out in Mother Jones, the right wing gets away with proposing wholesale changes in the Constitution, the suppression of voting rights, the end of the direct election of senators etc., and the candidates proposing such radical extremist measures are still regarded by the media as "serious" contenders.

Yet, if an American advocates for increased pay for workers and more manufacturing and less Wall Street manipulation of financial "paper," they are labeled as followers of Lenin.

So, take a look at the latest Forbes list of the 400 wealthiest Americans. The top ten include Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, the Koch brothers, the Walton (Wal-Mart) family and Michael Bloomberg (with a measly $18 billion in net worth).

So, if progressives who simply advocate democracy, compassion and economic fairness are going to be called fringe ideologues - while right-wing John Birchers on steroids are now considered within the mainstream - then maybe it's time to push the edge of the envelope.

Maybe the counterpoint to a Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann or Eric Cantor is to put on the table limiting individuals to the accumulation of no more than $1 billion in personal assets. Any funds beyond that would be fully taxed and used to underwrite a national infrastructure, job training and an alternative energy development bank run by the US Department of the Treasury.

If Perry can advocate secession for Texas from the US, then it's about time to formally propose that wealth and greed should have its limits in order to help America move forward.

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Someone should tell Eric Cantor he's not in charge of us, not charged with making policy for the country and not some wise guru who keeps the secrets of the universe tucked away in an envelope he keeps in his breast pocket.

Every time he tries to make his ideological positions the guiding principles for the vast majority of Americans he makes clear how mired in the politics of unreason he really is. As the latest catastrophe to strike this country began its historic march up the East Coast Cantor reiterated his principles if, they can be so defined, that disaster relief can only be undertaken if there are offsetting cuts in government spending.

Some might claim his insistence on such fiscal restraint is just part of the conservative process of putting our financial house in order, of being consistent in that regard. But for some of us, being that firm in the expression of one's 'ideals' represents a profound departure from the expectation that government has a duty not only to protect the governed from outside dangers but to design programs that promote the general welfare in other respects as well. As has been made clear by the stubborn resistance in Congress to anything that doesn't have at its core a commitment to cutting the federal budget at every possible juncture, policy- making has become an exercise in mindless partisan gamesmanship.

There are signs that some of the Tea Party rhetoric is wearing thin and not a moment too soon. But even the more reasonable voices in the Republican ranks must be viewed with caution because Jeb Bush, for example, may just be sounding the voice of reason in a season that keeps proving how intellect and innovative policies are almost totally lacking in the Republican playbook. His point that the party must be for something and not just against the president is well taken, of course, but in the big scheme of things what conservatives are for tends to be a retread of tired old measures. And the unwillingness of Republican candidates to take a stand critical of their more outrageous contenders isn't exactly uplifting for voters who seek words to live by.

In yet another attempt to sustain what conservatives call the 'defense of marriage' act legislators are asked to pledge support for "pro-family" positions or face the prospect of "bloody scalps" hanging over the Senate rail. In other words stick to the right-wing line or you will be targeted for defeat come election time. There are now so many pledges and side-bars in Congress it seems almost forgotten that legislators once swore to be bound by the Constitution not the vagaries of partisan politics.

In the current virulent political landscape candidates say things that are not only untrue but reveal a meanness of spirit unworthy of the ideals embodied in our founding principles. It isn't entirely clear what Eric Cantor means when he says disaster relief must be offset by spending cuts. Does that include distribution of water and food when hurricanes overwhelm the ability of local facilities to service their populations? Or does he mean that when tornadoes level existing localities efforts to rescue and rebuild must adhere to the Cantor strictures?

As I sit here in Connecticut waiting for the inevitable loss of power and downed trees, hoping at least that nothing will fall on the house, I do not expect government to rush to my side. However I understand there are places at which residents can seek cover if need be, and that seems a proper function of the officials elected to serve constituents without considering ways to offset such arrangements with cost-cutting methodologies.

On the other hand, perhaps Cantor and his cohorts should be examining ways to provide funding for foreign conflicts instead of embracing a continuation of our bloated defense budget - - taxes, revenue enhancement? But somehow withholding disaster relief is hopefully the solution of last resort.

BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Perry is putting together a powerful team made up of wealthy conservative funders and conservative Christian evangelicals. According to the Texans For Public Justice, "Perry might never have been governor - nor now be a presidential candidate - but for James Leininger."

These days, the emergence of Texas Governor Rick Perry as the frontrunner for the Republican Party's presidential nomination must be warming the cockles of Dr. James Leininger's heart.  

Who is Dr. James Leininger, and why is he considered one of the Texas Governor's "most stalwart helpmates"?

Outside of Texas, Leininger is a relatively unknown multi-millionaire. Inside the second-largest U.S. state by both size and population, however, Leininger is known as the "Sugar Daddy" of the religious right.

A recent piece in The Texas Tribune described him as being "Well known to the state's political class," who "rose to political prominence for his work promoting school vouchers, the campaign to ban same-sex marriage in Texas and his sizable financial contributions to Perry and other conservative political candidates. He also founded the Texas Public Policy Foundation [TPPF], an influential conservative think tank that has worked closely with Perry."

"What makes Leininger one of the most powerful people in Texas politics is less the amount of money he has given over the years than the broad reach of his spending and his commitment to a conservative agenda," Karen Olsson reported in the November 2002 edition of the Texas Monthly. "By pumping tens of thousands of dollars into the previously ignored State Board of Education races, he turned an obscure committee of retired teachers into an ideological hornet's nest, whose debates over curriculum and textbook content have made national news.

"In addition to funding candidates personally, Leininger has launched several political action committees to support conservative judicial and legislative candidates and advocate for school vouchers. He has, moreover, established an entire politics and policy conglomerate [the TPPF] in Texas .... He has invested millions in private school voucher programs in San Antonio, the first of which he initiated in 1993. Some regard the state Republican party as an extension of his empire; its chair, Susan Weddington, is a former Kinetic Concepts employee, and the $475,000 Leininger donated to state party and caucus committees in the 2000 election cycle far exceeded the amount contributed by any other individual or organization in Texas, according to a report by the Center for Public Integrity."

The Texas Tribune noted that Leininger "has had a somewhat lower profile in recent years," and that "His last contribution to Perry's state campaign fund appears to have been $25,000 in 2009, according to [its] database of Perry's donors from 2000-11."

This past weekend, however, Leininger re-emerged, hosting Perry and several leading evangelical leaders including retired judge Paul Pressler, a Southern Baptist leader, Christian historian David Barton, East Texas evangelist Rick Scarborough and others who supported Perry's Christian prayer rally in Houston, at his ranch near Fredericksburg, Texas, the Dallas Morning News' Wayne Slater recently reported.

Just prior to the Leininger's Perry retreat, Texans For Public Justice issued a report titled "Rick Perry's Heavenly Host" (http://info.tpj.org/reports/pdf/PerryLeiningerHeavenlyHost.pdf) which pointed out that "Perry might never have been governor - nor now be a presidential candidate - but for James Leininger."

According to Texans For Public Justice (TPJ), ("Tracking the influence of money and corporate power in Texas politics" (http://www.tpj.org/) Leininger and his vast hospital bed fortune may have been responsible for keeping the political career of Perry from going under in 1998. At the time, Perry was involved in a close race for lieutenant governor. Many observers believe that it was Leininger's $1.1 million that helped push Perry win that contest over Democrat John Sharp; Perry captured just 50.04 percent of the vote.

It was that election that spurred Perry's rise.

Like conservative Christian billionaire Phillip Anschutz who has taken the entertainment industry by storm (http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/12976), Leininger may be a tad press-shy, but he does grant the occasional interview (See "Money Talks," a 2006 Texas Monthly interview, http://www.texasmonthly.com/2006-06-01/feature6.php)

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TONY PEYSER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

There aren't that many places of serious power

But if you manage to corrupt two

You're on your way to doing whatever horrors

Your dark heart may want to do.

England's phone hacking scandal happened

Because Murdoch's key positions

Involved the manipulation of both the cops

As well as some senior politicians.

In Ireland, the church didn't involve the press

As it let the abuse of boys increase

But instead decided that what they needed most

In their pocket was the local police.

Any branch of power when corrupted can be

A source of terrible trouble

But when one teams up with another branch

It's like Evil's daily double.

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The right-wing conservatives are betting against America's future.

That's not a speculative observation; it's reality.

When a core part of your political ideology is the denial of science - and science has been at the center of technological and economic advancements that made the US into an innovative and financial power - then you are advocating that the nation move backward.

For those who thought that the Scopes trial settled the issue of evolution, it has been a period of frustrating historical backlash. Those who would cling to the stagnation of creationism are embarked upon a ferocious campaign to cloak the world again in darkness.

As other nations race ahead of America in alternative fuels, scientific research, transportation alternatives and medical advances, the forces of scientific denial in the US are on the march back to the pre-Enlightenment.

A web site devoted to science and its future impact observes:

With a few notable exceptions, most of the contenders for the seat of Republican presidential candidate are outspoken critics of science. They and their supporters refuse to acknowledge the reality of climate change, want science teachers to tell students that human life was created by a spiritual force from beyond space, and suggest that the best way to get out of our debt hole is to cut government funding for the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health, which allocate money to cancer research and childhood autism treatments.

But based on recent demographics, these Republicans are out of touch with what Americans on both sides of the political spectrum want, which is more jobs in science, health care, engineering, and technology. Far from appealing to the average American, the Republican anti-science stance may alienate the party further from the mainstream.

Faith can be an inspiring force or it can lead to an infatuation with profound ignorance.

For Martin Luther King, belief meant "We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

For many of the Bible thumpers on the right, faith just means turning the lights out on progress.

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MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Two freshmen conservative GOP Congressman believe that what Congress needs is more funeral directors.

No, this is not an Onion headline; it's from remarks made by a couple of guys who want to strangle the federal government. Maybe then they could make a profit burying it. They were addressing, last March, the National Funeral Directors Association's Advocacy Summit.

Yesterday, BuzzFlash at Truthout highlighted a video clip of Illinois Republican Congressman Randy Hultgren being unable to answer how the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy could be working if they have resulted in a million jobs being lost over the years that they have been in place.

Hultgren has other things on his mind, such as how more funeral home directors in the Capitol could help America. Along with his fellow frosh, "mortician's kid" Florida Rep. Steve Southerland, Hultgren believes, "We need more funeral directors in Congress."

"If you want to understand a community, then go talk to the funeral director because he understands that community," Hultgren said in the "Memorial Business Journal." "Growing up in a funeral home is a wonderful training ground for serving in Congress - understanding that people are making sacrifices to run businesses to serve the people in your community."

Southerland declared - and we are not making this up: "Everything I learned on how to run for Congress I learned in the lobby of Southerland Family Funeral Homes." He rallied the March gathering of mortuary directors: "What we need in all levels of government - local, state and federal - is you funeral directors to broaden your horizon and your understanding of what you have."

Hultgren and Southerland may not understand the harmful impact of excessive tax cuts for the wealthy on our economy, but they surely will know how to put the federal government six feet under.

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BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

He's been dubbed the "stealth media mogul," labeled"America's greediest executive,"by Fortune magazine, and was added to "The 12 Most Powerful Christians in Hollywood"list on Beliefnet. He has also been described as "secretive" and "reclusive," given that he reportedly hasn't spoken on the record to the press since 1974. Nevertheless, he is identified as an active supporter of Christian and conservative causes.

He may not be directly tied to the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), but he appears to be single-handedly accomplishing at least one of the goals of NAR's "Seven Mountains Mandate": taking control of the "mountain" of entertainment.

He's Phillip Anschutz, one of the wealthiest men in America that most Americans have never heard of, and he clearly desires it that way.

A devout Christian, Anschutz, a Denver, Colorado-based billionaire who has made a chunk of his fortune in railroads, telecommunications, and the oil and gas businesses, has, through his Anschutz Entertainment Group, taken the entertainment industry by storm.

Anschutz owns the Regal Entertainment theater chain; movie making enterprises such as Walden Media, which co-produced The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe,"(that grossed more than 1 billion in ticket and DVD sales); arenas, such as Los Angeles's Staples Center; a number of sports teams, including one-third of the LA Lakers basketball team, and stakes in the LA Kings hockey team and the LA Galaxy soccer team; and, Anschutz Entertainment Group's (AEG) concerts division promotes tours for pop stars like Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber and Jon Bon Jovi.

Anschutz also owns, The Examiner chain of conservative newspapers, and last year, Anschutz added The Weekly Standard (bought for a reported $1 million from Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation), an influential conservative magazine, to his ever-expanding quiver.

Anschutzing Los Angeles

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MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

One of the traditional America values that used to be revered as a sign of our national character was common sense.

But no longer. Most of the right-wing slogans and sound bites are based on promoting economic policy that has proven not to work. This is the opposite of common sense: it's doing what repeatedly hasn't shown results and insisting that it will magically be effective the next time around.

GOP Congressman Randy Hultgren of Illinois was confronted with common sense about the Bush tax cuts at a summer recess town hall meeting. Indeed, a constituent asked Hultgren why - if the Bush tax cuts helped create jobs, as the GOP argues - the unemployment rate has gone up around 3 percentage points since they were enacted? Hultgren was flummoxed.

He couldn't answer the question and fumbled his way into talking about "the stimulus" instead of the ineffectiveness of excessive tax cuts for the wealthy. Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks featured a video of the encounter and remarked that Hultgren was "stone cold busted." Uygur noted that we've lost a million jobs over the last ten years.

The constituent also pointed out that the nonwealthy end up paying more in additional government taxes (to cover the interest on the debt, but one could add that additional flat, local and state taxes are borne by the middle and working class), while the rich just get richer.

You can add to that the common sense and prima facie reality that if the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy were repealed, it would go a long way toward reducing the national deficit with which the GOP and the Tea Party are so obsessed.

******

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JACQUELINE MARCUS FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

The August 23rd earthquake that rocked D.C. all the way up to Martha's Vineyard where the President is vacationing should be an alarming wake up call to President Obama on how easily a crude oil pipeline can rupture under the sudden magnitude of an earthquake.

It's bad enough that this President gave the thumbs up to the Arctic offshore oil drilling.  "The Arctic's Beaufort Sea is plagued with high seas, shrieking winds, darkness, sea ice, and minimal visibility. Yet, the Obama administration State Department just approved aggressive offshore drilling in these harsh waters-before doing a full environmental review, and without requiring reliable safety equipment or an approved oil spill response plan." (EarthJustice.com)

The President still has a chance to be on the right side of history by saying NO to Arctic drilling and NO to the Keystone pipeline project which threatens to poison our fragile ecology, agricultural land and fresh water aqueducts.  The pipeline is from the oil sands of Alberta and would run from Canada through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. In addition, the consumption of this oil would be the same as setting off a "carbon bomb into the atmosphere," as environmentalist and activist Bill McKibben put it, by intensifying global warming beyond the tipping point.

As for creating jobs-that certainly is an appealing selling point, but as the Gulf residents who lost their livelihoods in the fishing, real estate and tourism industries worth billions of dollars a year before they were swept away by the black tides of BP's oil will tell you, it's not worth the risk of employing 5 to 10,000 workers temporarily for Canadian oil that in the end will not make our gas prices cheaper because it will be sold on the international market.  Sen. Bernie Sanders is right: we can produce a lot more jobs with the creation of green energy technology.  In fact, solar and wind companies are beginning to boom and they're doing it without the Federal government.  You can't stop progress.

Lastly, the public has learned too many times that there's no way to prevent oil spills. The August 23rd earthquake is an urgent red warning to the President from Mother Nature that ruptured pipes from earthquakes and floods are happening with far more frequency and violent velocity under climate change conditions than ever before.  The rising floods that left thousands of people homeless is the reason Exxon-Mobile's pipeline ruptured into Montana's Yellowstone River.  By approving these dirty energy projects, Obama will be  making climate change conditions worse knowing full well that  there is no efficient way to prevent or to clean oil spills, especially in the Arctic's turbulent and icy dark seas.  Did this President learn anything about the message of climate change when he stood in front of the tornado damaged homes in the mid-west?

Will President Obama have the good conscience or moral fortitude to do the right thing?  We're waiting to see.

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ROBERT CREAMER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

What do yesterday's east coast earthquake, our infrastructure and antiquated Federal accounting systems have to do with jobs? A lot, it turns out.

The earthquake yesterday was the largest east coast trembler in 67 years. But earthquakes of moderate intensity are not rare. The U.S. Geological Survey counted an average of 1,300 earthquakes each year that range in magnitude from 5 to 5.9 on the Richter Scale. Yesterday's was on the high end, at 5.8. Earthquakes - even in areas like the East Coast that is the middle of a tectonic plate - happen regularly and should not come as a surprise.

The same is true of floods, hurricanes, tornadoes and huge snow storms. Natural disasters don't happen every day or every year, but they are definitely going to happen. And when they do they test our infrastructure.

If, as a society, when we let our infrastructure deteriorate - or cut corners to build things on the cheap - it often turns out that the cost of our neglect is much greater than if we had taken a more responsible, prudent course and built roads, and high rises, and levies and nuclear plants that are designed to survive the natural disasters that are all but certain to happen some day.

Just six years ago during Hurricane Katrina, the United States almost lost the entire city of New Orleans because we had skimped on investment in the levies that would have protected it from flooding.

The Japanese have faced an economic and human calamity because the nuclear plants at Fukushima were not built to survive a massive earthquake and tsunami.

When natural disasters like these strike, it's too late to invest the relatively modest amounts of money necessary to prevent catastrophic failures in our infrastructure that end up costing society many, many times more than it would have cost to prevent them. And that's just the disasters - not ordinary wear and tear - or investment in basic needs for our growing population.

We've seen the warning signs everywhere.

A major bridge in the middle of Minneapolis collapses without warning, killing 13 people and causing massive economic disruption.

Ancient water lines in the nation's capital rupture.

This spring the 80-year-old levy system along the Mississippi was so overstressed by rains that the river had to be temporarily shut to commercial traffic, costing the economy millions of dollars.

Because of failure to invest in public transportation and road improvements highways are becoming more and more congested, costing more millions in lost productivity.

The Chinese have plans to complete a 10,000-mile high speed rail system in the next decade, yet American plans for high speed rail are sidetracked by Republicans in Congress.

China is spending nine percent of its GDP on new infrastructure-compared to only three percent in the U.S., although we have far greater resources.

Yet the Republican Congress - and much of America's political elite - has become so mesmerized by the "deficit debate" that it is on the verge of making the foolish decision to "save money" today by failing to invest in our infrastructure for tomorrow.

Much of this deficit talk is cloaked in the language of "responsibility" and fiscal discipline. We are told that we cannot borrow money that will have to be repaid by our children. But shortchanging investment in our nation's infrastructure is not doing any favors for the next generation. In fact it is "cover" -- to allow the wealthiest people in America to gorge themselves on more and more of our nation's wealth and income - without contributing their fair share in taxes to support our common needs and our common future.

Republican House leaders have proposed cutting investment in transportation infrastructure by two thirds. The Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials estimates that this proposal would cost America another 500,000 jobs.

People who claim that is "fiscally responsible" are engaging in the worst kind of Orwellian "Double Speak." Proposals like these involve the ultimate in irresponsibility to the next generation. Proposals like these involve the ultimate in irresponsibility to the next generation - allowing the millionaires to consume today and neglecting the entire society's infrastructure that is needed to compete for the future.

It is the height of irresponsibility to leave our kids a public infrastructure that is collapsing and dangerous - all because the richest among us want to continue to gorge themselves in multi-million dollar bonuses, huge executive salaries, and private jets to fly them off to opulent parties, or to and from their many homes.

Former Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania has proposed that the earthquake be the occasion for America to retrofit all of its nuclear power plants to bring them up to the standards necessary to withstand serious seismic events. That would generate hundreds of thousands of new construction jobs.

The same could be said of massive numbers of additional infrastructure projects from school repair to park improvements, to sewer and water projects, to levy upgrades, to public transportation projects and high speed rail.

In the past, America built big things - from the Interstate Highway system to the great dams. We can do it again.

One of the reasons why we fail to make these critical investments is the archaic accounting system of the Federal Government.

If you are a business and make an investment in plant and equipment, you don't count the outlay as an expenditure. When you build a plant, the money is not gone; after all, you have a new plant that is an asset with which you can create future revenue. So the new plant is recognized on the books as an asset and it is expensed over its useful life (or for tax purposes according to IRS depreciation rules).

But when the Federal Government invests in a highway or a levy - that have decades of useful life -- it immediately counts these outlays as an expense. It is accounted for the same way you would a salary or reimbursement for a meal. The Federal Government has no capital budget - no way to account for assets that offset its investments.

That has two important implications.

First, even when the Federal Government makes investments that will massively improve the economic circumstances of future generations, these investments increase the "deficit" the same way current expenditures do. So even if the Federal Government had billions of dollars of new productive assets to show for its investments - new buildings or schools or levies - no one would know it. Those assets simply wouldn't count against the calculation of the "deficit." That creates a political disincentive to invest in the future.

Second, the lack of a capital budget does not provide us a way to measure the level of investment made by the Federal Government as compared with its level of consumption. That is a huge problem, since the relationship of investment to consumption is a critical element in creating long-term economic growth.

In economics there is a qualitative difference between the two. Consumption involves spending on goods and services we consume - use up - to satisfy our needs. Investment involves spending on assets - on tools - on plant and equipment or skills -- that will allow us to create more goods and services in the future.

Highways, public transportation, airports, water systems, sewer lines, levies and power plants, windmills, the Internet (which was originally created by the Federal Government), the GPS system -- all are assets that allow us to create goods and services in the future - to create future wealth. The same is true of less tangible assets like education. Education is not consumption. It is investment in "human capital" that is the most important foundation of future economic growth.

We are being irresponsible to our kids if we do not invest in these things.

Finally, investing in infrastructure today is exactly what is needed to jumpstart our economy and put people back to work. By refusing to do so, we are wasting the talent and energy of 14 million Americans who could be doing productive work.

My wife, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, has proposed legislation that would create 2.3 million new jobs over each of the next two years, doing critical things that need to be done. Much of that work involves improving infrastructure - especially our schools and parks.

Her bill would cost $237 billion over two years - which could be paid for entirely by increasing the tax rates of millionaires and billionaires to levels slightly lower than they were early in the Reagan Administration. The bill would reduce the unemployment rate by 1.3%. It would be guaranteed to produce 2.3 million jobs because the money is metered out to states, local governments and other agencies only when it is tied to a job.

The proposed Infrastructure Bank is another approach that would substantially increase investment in infrastructure - and generate millions of jobs over time - by leveraging private investment with Federal infrastructure dollars.

Yesterday's earthquake should be nature's wake-up call to Washington. It's as if Mother Nature reached out and shook Washington and said, "Pay attention - wake up from your near-hypnotic fixation on short-term ‘deficit reduction.' Stop short-changing critical investments in your economy."

Robert Creamer is a long-time political organizer and strategist, and author of the book: Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, available on Amazon.com. He is a partner in Democracy Partners. Follow him on Twitter @rbcreamer.

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Many people in this country struggle to find a way to deal with an inherently inequitable set of circumstances that plays havoc with their ability to prosper and provide for their children's future. Poverty defies commonly accepted definitions of what this means depending on what may be included as income and how a family member answers questions about whether or not they experienced hunger recently.

It may be, as Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation explained recently on Washington Journal, that there are too many government agencies tasked with providing aid programs for the disadvantaged. And it may be the American public has been misled about the extent to which various populations in our country suffer the ravages of a poverty-stricken life. He points out that with all the assistance poor families receive their income remains constant. In other words, despite food stamps, medical aid, and housing supplements none of this is factored into what Rector considers a more accurate reading of the incomes at issue. If a poor family applies for benefits and receives them, according to his analysis, they should immediately leapfrog into a higher income level. This seems to be the kind of logic that would render an antibiotic in the treatment of a disease as incidental to the curative process and perhaps overly indulgent into the bargain.

It's important, as Rector and so many conservatives agree, not to encourage a mindset that prefers our country's freebies to an honest day's work. It's not, he says that he begrudges low-income families whatever good things they are able to attain. It's just that we are on an unsustainable pace in terms of government handouts. Oddly Rector doesn't make too much of the fact that we're in the midst of a recession that saps the life out of a labor force that has seen its wages diminish and a growing income disparity between it and the elite personnel who are making it big time at banks and corporations. Of course Bank of America plans to cut thousands of employees in the near future in response to lower profit margins, though probably not for top executives one assumes. But if there is room at the top, there's precious little at the bottom.

Rector insists that, while there are pockets of real poverty, families in this country who earn below what is commonly called 'the poverty line' fare better than most middle and upper-class workers in Europe, have adequate housing and rarely if ever experience hunger. Take a look and you'll find, he says, that so-called poor families are likely to have X-Box systems, cable TV, plasma TVs and computers. They are not among the homeless, the hungry, or the unemployed. Who knew? Never mind that minorities in the country are unemployed in higher percentages than others and that making those "tough choices" we hear so much about may involve deciding whether a child has new shoes for school, a healthy diet or health insurance as opposed to emergency-room care. George Bush used to say that no-one is deprived of health care in this country because they are able to access Emergency Rooms. How many lower-income children have adequate health plans even with all the welfare programs in force?

It is worth remembering that many outlays for food stamps make their way quickly back into the economy, that the poor are forced to spend much of what they receive in benefits and that one would have hoped we had passed the era of Reagan's "welfare queens." Rector didn't use that term, but it seemed to be hovering somewhere in the background. Questions remain about the accessibility of shops and reasonably-priced amenities in poorer communities.

But lest we forget Rector tells us most members of the poverty class also have cars, the better to go shopping for those plasma TVs and X-Box systems no doubt. We are a lot better off it would seem than we were given to believe.

MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF TRUTHOUT AT BUZZFLASH

Unless there are a lot of miraculous, virgin births in Texas, Rick Perry's taxpayer-funded emphasis on abstinence education is a bust.

According to an Associated Press (AP) article, "Teen pregnancy rates declined in the US, while more teens in Texas are getting pregnant.... Texas is in the top ten states for having the most pregnant teens, rising seven percent to more than 44,000."

In a recent previous commentary on BuzzFlash at Truthout, we wrote that "Perry adamantly defended the [abstinence education] program. This is not only a Victorian outlook, it contradicts the right-wing notion that every government program should be judged by its effectiveness."

The AP report quoted the manager of the West Texas Planned Parenthood Clinic about the pregnant teens who she sees:

"They're not educated in the pregnancy itself and in the options that they have about birth control or they don't know anything about STDs," [the manager] said. "They're just uneducated about it. The school district is abstinence only."

Enforced ignorance doesn't reduce teen pregnancy; it just makes it more likely. Moreover, abstinence-only education is a cruelty visited upon young women who don't want to become mothers so early in their lives.

Rick Perry's harmful political stakeout to attract religious right voters is an abuse of teenagers. There's nothing miraculous about the teenage pregnancy rate in Texas. It's born of selfish ambition, pure and simple.

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BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

It was a little more than a month ago that the Norwegian Islamophobic Christian fundamentalist Anders Behring Breivik, wreaked havoc in Norway, killing 77 and injuring many more. After the initial flurry of reportage, analysis, commentary and punditry, for all intents and purposes Breivik has disappeared into the ether that is the American mainstream media. Maybe it is thus because it happened in far off Norway, maybe it is because our attention span is disastrously truncated, maybe it is because - like in so many of these cases -- he has been too easily dismissed as a madman acting alone. Perhaps, too, the connective tissue between Breivik and Islamophobes in the U.S. is too hot to handle.

These days, we've pivoted on to other things: the debt-ceiling fiasco; the daily vicissitudes of the stock market; anguish over thirty-one more U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan and the increasing carnage in Iraq; Rupert Murdoch's serial scandals; Rick Perry's prayer-fest followed by his celebrated tossing of his hat into the Republican presidential ring; the Michelle Bachmann Newsweek cover.

As Keith Olbermann exclaims on his nightly "Countdown" program at the end of the zany videos segment; "Time Marches On."

Interrupting the 'March of Time'

In a engrossing essay in the August issue of Esquire titled "The Bomb That Didn't Go Off" (http://www.esquire.com/features/homegrown-terrorism-us-0811), Charles P. Pierce interrupts the march of time, hopefully for more than a short rest-bit as he revisits the site of a bomb that didn't explode. Pierce takes a close look at the events of January 17, in Spokane, Washington, and places them within the borders of the question: Why has a series of right-wing-initiated violent actions in the U.S., including bombings, plans for bombings, and assassinations, have not gotten the attention they deserve?

To recap: On January 17, a bomb was discovered on a "bench in the corner of a downtown parking lot at the intersection of Washington Street and Main Avenue," a spot that was on the route of the hundreds of marchers expected to take part in the annual Martin Luther King Day celebration.

The bomb was discovered by "three maintenance workers [who] were sprucing up the perimeter of the parking lot at Washington and Main, shining up the route of the march." Police came, the area was cordoned off and evacuated, the bomb, that was discovered to be an IED, was robotically disarmed, the march was re-routed; no bomb went off, no one was hurt. Eventually, Kevin Harpham was arrested and accused of planting the bomb.

And, as the Reverend Percy Happy Watkins, who has delivered a reenactment of Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech in Spokane for twenty-five years or so, pointed out: "We just forgot about it, that's what we always do."

Pierce writes: "That the events of January 17 largely have faded from the news has nothing to do with luck at all. That is all human agency - how a fragmented country gathers the pieces of an event like this and tries to construct from them, not necessarily the truth of what happened, but a story that the country can live with, one more fragment among dozens of others that the country has remembered to forget."

As we move deeper into an age of misinformation, disinformation, and superfluous information, maintaining our collective memory will more and more depend on honest information brokers; storytellers, journalists, investigative reporters who pursue a story with a passion and hunger for truth.

Circling back to Anders Behring Breivik

Thanks to some heady research and reporting by Jason Boog of GalleyCat ("The First Word on the Book Publishing Industry") and others, we have learned that in his 1,500 page manifesto titled 2083: A European Declaration of Independence Breivik, the Norwegian Christian fundamentalist accused of killing 77 people in a car bombing and the subsequent murder spree at a youth camp, had "outlined plans for attacking writers, journalists and literature professors."

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