Catching Up On The News

A friend and I had lunch today and he mentioned how overwhelmed he has been feeling by political developments and the feeling that we are often swimming against a stream of right-wing wins and liberal follies and more generalized world disasters. I know what he means.

Working people, the unemployed, the poor and the folks who are struggling to hang on or do better are easily overwhelmed by the news and events occurring around us. Here are some recent news items and commentary which I think helps prove our point that capitalism is disaster-driven and that we can manage the events, take them in bite-size pieces and create an alternative.

October 5: Things got so bad in the home building market that the builders announced that they will no longer provide the incentives and freebies they have previously used to attract customers. They also announced that newly built homes will be smaller than the McMansions you see on River Road south of Salem or on 99W between Corvallis and Monmouth. Lower interest rates on home loans are supposed to make up for the gimmicks they're dropping. It's more likely that this is a sign of partial deflation. Chain-owned retirement communities also announced that they need cash in a hurry. These chains have gotten tax incentives from local communities to open up in many cases and have made some of their profits by gaining exemptions from certain taxes and regulations and by withdrawing from cities or counties and not using public services. This has become a dangerous trend in the American economy.

In early November leading retailers also expressed nervousness about Christmas and holiday sales. They expect low sales. This probably explains why Halloween was such a big deal this year and why many stores in Salem already have Christmas displays in their store windows.

In this same period Indian contractors announced that they are seeking bigger contracts from First World companies for things like data support, web management, accounts management and high tech and computer services. These firms already have a large share of the world's work. Indian plans are to use this as leverage for more and more detailed contracts and to subcontract some of the work they receive. This is, in effect, a managed race to the bottom.

October 7: A report was issued showing that the scope and cost of immigrant detention has become outrageously high and that innocent people are being detained in prison-like conditions while they await adjudication of possible immigration violations. Attention turned to the costs and to the jails themselves. One detention center in New York City was contracted out to a Native American tribe. People being held there work for $1.00 a day and many people have been transferred to other facilities before they can obtain competent legal help and their case has been adjudicated. The contracting group is making bundles in this system and has no economic or political interest in improving conditions or helping the people being held to get justice.

Leading Democrats announced in this period that they would work harder on making it possible for people who experience age discrimination at work to pursue legal remedies. In October a great deal of attention was being paid to the increase in complaints about discrimination and harassment at work. Republicans have reacted badly to this or have ignored the issues. Mitchell & Sugar, the syndicated "Dear Abby" of the moment, even ran a letter on October 8 complaining about a boss who has bought new homes and and cars and gone on a luxurious vacation while workers had their benefits drastically cut and are working in a low-morale and high-stress environment. The offered solution was that the letter writer should form a committee and act as its spokesperson in order to have a meaningful conversation about morale with the boss. We hope that they form a union instead.

On October 9 Daniel Lee Jones, a local Oregon white supremacist fascist, was indicted for mailing a noose to the president of the Ohio NAACP. This was in the same period as Rush Limbaugh was losing his bid on the football franchise and getting any conservative Black person he could to testify on his behalf. Limbaugh used the racist wink-and-nod all the way through his trials and is still smarting from his rebuke by leading NFL players and their union. Juan Williams, the NPR and Fox commentator best remembered for saying, "Michelle Obama, you know, she's got this Stokely Carmichael in a designer dress thing going," went with the flow. So much for NPR's alleged open-mindedness and liberalism.

FreedomWorks, the right-wing smear outfit, did double duty in this period by announcing that they're going to increase their work and build on the town halls and tea parties organized by the right. Glenn Beck is the most prominent leader of this movement. FreedomWorks and its foundation had $7 million in combined revenue last year, which hardly makes them the poor political outsiders they pose as. An op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal of October 5 called for more ethnic, religious and political insults. Juan Williams gives the right its needed media cover, The Wall Street Journal gives them an intellectual veneer and people like Daniel Lee Jones do their dirty work.

The right wing in California was forced to back down on some state budget cuts after protests. As with Oregon, there was a race in California for crumbs (available funding) in the state budget fight and programs and services were cut back. A movement gathered after the cuts and won money for the Healthy Families insurance program, firefighting and state parks. Fighting back clearly helps.

Matters got so bad in banking that a headline in the Business Day section of The New York Times of October 10 asked "Have Banks No Shame?". The article concerned the banks' opposition to consumer protection efforts.

This is not really yesterday's news. Pick 5 random days to read the paper, put the issues together and let a few weeks pass to see who comes out ahead. Ask who is telling you what and what their motivations are. I think that in almost every case you will see a wealthy right-wing lying and using its press and its intellectuals to make the lies sound credible, a capitalist crisis that even the media can't ignore, a confrontation between the right-wing and the people's forces and unexpectedly good outcomes whenever the people push back.